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CHRIST OR CHAOS 


BY / 
MARTIN J. SCOTT, S.J. 





P. J. KENEDY & SONS 


PUBLISHERS TO THE HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE 


NEW YORK 


Imprimi Potest: 
LAURENTIUS J. KELLY, S.J. 


Nihil Obstat: 


ARTHUR J. SCANLAN, S.T.D. 
Censor Librorum 


Imprimatur: 
M4 Patrick CarpINAL Hayes, D.D. 
Archiemscopus Neo-Hborancensts 


Neo-Eboraci, die 27, Augustii 1924. 


CoprricutT, 1924 
By P. J. KENEDY & SONS 


Printed in the United States of America 


FOREWORD 


These pages are the A B C of the Christian 
Religion. Each page could be enlarged into a vol- 
ume. The aim is a treatment, terse, clear, and proof 
against every argument of false science and phi- 
losophy. 

The issue to-day is fundamental. So-called Mod- 
ernists reject a fixed Creed, and miracles. They 
want a religion which will change with time and 
circumstances, and which does not recognize miracu- 
lous happenings. 

But Christ delwvered to His Church a fixed Creed, 
and Christ Himself was the greatest of all miracles; 
the Apostles instructed by Him preached a fixed 
Creed; the Church with whom He promised to be 
until the end of the world has always taught a fixed 
Creed. If Christ is not God let us be done with Him 
and relegate Christianity to the realm of myths. 
But if He is God let us respect His word and give 
Him credit for knowing and teaching Truth. Truth 
never changes. Only error needs alteration. ‘You 
change therefore you have not the truth” is a philo- 
sophic dictum. In the witness stand a test of truth 


is fixity. Chemical laws do not change, yet that 
Vv 


v1 FOREWORD 


does not make chemistry unprogressive. So the 
Creed of Christ, which never changes because truth 
never changes, is not unprogressive because it is 
fixed. Christian civilization is proof. Think for 
yourself, 


PRELIMINARY 


“Nature declares that there is one ever-acting 
Creator and Ruler.” 

Lorp Kernvry, Presidential Address, British 
Association. 


“Nature being subject to law cannot, therefore, 
be God. She is the wondrous product of His Al- 
mighty Will. Thus the will of God is everywhere 
expressed by the laws of nature, since these laws 
originate from Him.” 

Lamarck, Father of Organic Evolutionism, Sys- 
teme Analytique, p. 43. 


“Tt seems to me that Creation in the ordinary sense 
of the word, is perfectly conceivable. I find no diffi- 
culty in imagining that, at some former period, this 
universe was not in existence, and that it made its 
appearance in consequence of the volition of some 
preexisting Being.” 


Houxtey, Life of Darwin, II, p. 187. 


“The existence of a Being endowed with intelli- 
gence and wisdom is a necessary infererce from a 
study of celestial mechanics.” 


Srr Isaac Newton, Principia. 
Vu 


Vlil PRELIMINARY 


“Design is altogether unmeaning without a design- 
ing mind. The study then of the phenomena of 
nature leads us to the contemplation of a Being from 
whom proceeded the orderly arrangement of natural 
things that we behold.” 

Str G. G. Sroxss, Burnett Lectures, p. 327. 


“Our noblest attributes as men are ours because 
they are essential constituents of the image of Him 
who in the beginning created not only the heaven 
and the earth, but the materials of which heaven and 
earth consist.” 

Ciuerk Maxwetz, Address to British Associa- 
tion. 


“Shall we possess these things and God not possess 
them? Let no worthy human attribute be denied 
to the Deity. Whatever worthy attribute belongs to 
man, be it personality or any other, its existence in 
the universe is thereby admitted, we can deny it no 
more.” 

Srr Ourver Lopes, “Hibbert Journal,” Jan., 
1903. 


CONTENTS 


To THE Non-CaTHOLIC READER 


EVvoLurIon 


DARWINISM . 


MIRACLES 


PART I: THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 


CHAPTER 


Gop oR MATERIALISM 
Gop oR CHANCE . 
Man Is More THan MATTER 


Man Is Composep oF Bopy AND SouUL 


THERE Is a Future Lire 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 
THE CREATOR AND MANKIND 
Gop’s Law 

JESUS CHRIST 

Jesus Curist Is Gop 


. dJeEsus Curist Is Gop 


JESUS CHRIST AND OURSELVES . 
THERE Is a TruE RELIcIon 
THERE Is BuT ONE TruE RELIGION 
THE TRUE RELIGION . 


THE PurRPOSE OF RELIGION . 
1X 


CHAPTER 


XVII. 
XVIII. 


XXII. 
XXIII. 


XXIV. 


XXY. 


XXXVI. 


XXVII. 
XXVIII. 


XXIX. 


XXX. 
XXXI. 


CONTENTS 


THE CATHOLIC CHURCH . 
THe CaTHoLic CHURCH . 
OTHER CHRISTIAN SECTS 
THE CaTHOLIC CHURCH AND ABUSES 


THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE REFOR- 
MATION . 


THE CaTHOLIC CHURCH AND INFALLIBILITY 
THE CaTHOLIC CHURCH AND TRUTH 

THe CatHotic CHurcH AND COMPROMISE 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PROGRESS 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND OURSELVES 
THE CaTHOLIC CHURCH AND THE WORLD . 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND ACCUSATIONS 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PaTRIOTISM . 
THe CaTHoLic CHURCH OR PAGANISM . 


THe CatHotic CHurcH, THE LicHT oF 
THE WoRLD 


PART II: CATHOLIC DOCTRINE 


THE CATHOLIC CHURCH . 
AUTHORITY . 

AIT ED (44'S lng here aes aes Mies Mek ame 
SOD a lets 

UMAR sir aiitie en 

THE Fauu . 

REDEMPTION 

SALVATION 


THe INCARNATION . 


PAGE 


CHAPTER 


XXVI. 
XXVIT. 


PART III: STATEMENTS OF NON-CATH- 


CONTENTS 


CaTHoLic DuTIES . 
THe Ten CoMMANDMENTS 


Tue Srx COMMANDMENTS OF THE CHURCH . 


THE SACRAMENTS . 

THe Mass . 

THe Hoty Evcuarist 
CoNFESSION 

PURGATORY . 

HEAVEN AND HELL 
DEVOTIONAL PRACTICES. 

THe MotHer or Gop . 
Honortna Gop’s MotTHeEr 
RH EMHOPBAG run cL aetna NY ot aut 
Tue BIBLE . 

INDULGENCGES ) SUm Aah eh 
ConpbucT 

Tue Practical CATHOLIC 
THe ENp or Man . 


OLICS WHO HAVE BECOME CATHOLICS 241-266 


Excerpt from “Boston Transcript,” May, 1924. 9267 





TO THE NON-CATHOLIC READER 


Truth asks only an impartial hearing. Neverthe- 
less sometimes it is hard for non-Catholics to give 
the Catholic Church this impartial hearing. This 
is due to various causes, mostly to misrepresentation 
and environment. Hence, from non-Catholics them- 
selves, [ am presenting corroboration of what is here 
set forth. 

Each subject treated will be accompanied by 
statements from exclusively non-Catholic sources. 
No institution in the world has called forth so many 
and such high tributes from without as has the 
Catholic Church. These tributes are given by per- 
sons distinguished in the literary and scientific world. 
They should carry great weight with those outside 
the Church, since they represent the result of rigid 
investigation by scholars not at all interested in being 
champions of the Catholic Church. 

Such an accumulation of non-Catholic testimony 
for the various truths which constitute the Catholic 
ereed should certainly cause serious reflection in 
every one who desires to embrace the truth at what- 
ever cost. 


Xiv CHRIST OR CHAOS 


Non-CatHortic TESTIMONY 


“T am convinced that Protestantism in general 
treats Catholics with shameful ignorance and un- 
fairness.” 

Life and Correspondence of T. Arnold Stanley, 
I, p. 151. 


“Tt is high time that, without any prejudice in 
favor of the Catholic Church, the nonsense whieh 
has been foisted on to the public by men interested 
in suppressing the facts should be exposed.” 

Hynpman, Historical Basis of Socialism wm 
England, p. 15. 


‘“‘When Protestant ministers speak of the Roman 
Catholic Church, it is perforce to speak in condemna- 
tion of her. J propose to assume the unprotestant 
attitude of saying some things in the way of respect 
and veneration of her wonderful ministry to the cen- 
turies of human life. In all fairness, it must be ad- 
mitted that popular ignorance, superficial knowledge 
and malicious slander have misrepresented her teach- 
ing in many instances.” 

Rev. T. B. Tuomerson, Plymouth Congrega- 
tional Church, Chicago. 


“There is not, and there never was on this earth, 
a work of human policy so well deserving of exami- 


TO THE NON-CATHOLIC READER xv 


nation as the Roman Catholic Church. ... She 
saw the commencement of all the governments, and 
of all the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist 
in this world, and we feel no assurance that she is 
not destined to see the end of them all.” 
Macavtay’s LHssays, Ranke’s History of the | 
Popes, III, p. 303. 





EVOLUTION 


It is not uncommon to hear it said that Darwinism 
is the same as Evolution, and also that Evolution is 
opposed to Christianity. Evolution is not Darwin- 
ism nor is Evolution as a scientific theory opposed 
to Christianity. Evolution existed before Darwinism, 
and now that Darwinism, as will be shown presently, 
has been rejected by the foremost scientists of the 
world, Evolution continues to exist as a scientific 
theory. 

Evolution is only a theory, it is not a fact, as will 
be made evident. As proof that it is only a theory, 
we need only say that it is continually changing. 

In the last eighty years there have been three 
distinct phases of Evolution. <A fact never changes. 
Evolution is, therefore, only a theory, as we shall 
see directly. 

Science has affirmed many dogmas which time has 
disproved. Until recently Spontaneous Generation 
was a scientific dogma. Now every scientist knows 
its impossibility. Only a few years ago it was a 
dogma of chemistry that the atom was the final con- 
stituent of matter. Now that is all changed by the 
theory of electrons. And so it goes. 

xVi 


XV1li CHRIST OR CHAOS 


_ Revelation can grant everything that the scientific 
theory of Evolution has proven,—there is no an- 
tagonism between Christianity and the scientific 
theory of Evolution. Fifteen hundred years ago 
St. Augustine, one of the greatest intellects in the 
history of mankind, and a great Churchman, taught 
a scientific theory of Evolution. Wasmann, one of 
the foremost Evolutionists of modern times, is a 
Catholic priest. It is only when false champions 
of Evolution attempt to use it as a weapon against 
religion that evolution is made to appear antagonistic 
to Revelation. 

To show that there is no antagonism between 
Christianity and the scientific theory of Evolution, 
I quote the words of one who has written over thirty 
volumes on Evolution, and who is one of the foremost 
authorities in the world on biology: “Human 
knowledge and the Christian faith are not opposed 
to one another. Both are streams flowing from one 
original source, from one and the same infinite, 
eternal and divine wisdom. This wisdom cannot 
contradict itself, although it may address us now 
in one, now in another language. Hence I am firmly 
convinced that there can be no real contradiction 
between Christianity and science. I appreciate fully 
the zeal with which scientists are carrying on their 
investigations into the primitive history of the human 
race; and provided they do so in accordance with 
scientific procedure, I have no reason at all for pro- 


EVOLUTION wit 


testing. Whatever science reveals I shall accept 
without reservation, but the case is entirely different 
with phantoms of the imagination set forth as facts. 
If we assume that God is the Creator of all things 
and that the world created by Him has evolved inde- 
pendently and automatically, we have actually a 
greater idea of God than if we regard Him as con- . 
stantly interfering with the working of the laws 
of nature. Let us imagine two billiard players, each 
having a hundred balls to direct. The one needs a 
hundred strokes in order to accomplish his end, the 
other with one stroke sets all the balls in motion as 
he wills. The latter is undoubtedly the more skillful 
player. ... 

“St. Thomas stated long ago that the force of any 
cause was the greater the further its action extended. 
God does not interfere directly in the natural order 
where He can act through natural causes. This is 
by no means a new principle, but a very old one, and 
it shows us that the theory of Evolution, as a scien- 
tific hypothesis, is perfectly compatible with the 
Christian theory of the origin of things. According 
to this view, the evolution of the organic world is 
but a little line in the millions of pages contained 
in the Book of the Evolution of the whole universe, 
on the title page of which still stands written in in- 
delible letters, “In the beginning God created Heaven 
and Earth.” + 


1Wasmann, Problem of Evolution, pp. 20, 84. 


XX CHRIST OR CHAOS 


This is the statement of a learned Churchman who 
is also a great scientist. There can be no antagonism 
between Christianity and scientific Evolution. The 
only antagonism comes from false champions of either 
Church or Science. 

The field of the scientist is the assembling and 
classification of data and the investigation into the 
proximate causes of things. Some scientists leave 
this field for that of speculation. The field of science 
is the what of things, and their immediate cause, and 
the field of philosophy is the how of things, their 
ultimate cause. It is when the scientist leaves his 
own sphere and enters that of metaphysics that he 
is apt to go astray. A man may be a skillful sur- 
geon, but a very poor lawyer. If a renowned sur- 
geon should give a legal opinion, trusting to his repu- 
tation as a surgeon for its acceptance, he would be 
ridiculed. 

Scientists are continually doing this very thing. 
The ultimate how of things is something outside the 
investigation of physical science. This ultimate how 
of things can only be discovered by metaphysics, if 
at all. Itis the scientist who plays the metaphysician 
who is apt to oppose science to Revelation. But in 
reality there is no opposition of science to religion. 
Science cannot pronounce on the beginning of things 
because there are no data to go by. “Science knows 
nothing about the origin of matter.”1 Scientific 

*Sir Oliver Lodge, “Lit. Rev.,” Feb. 23, 1924. 


EVOLUTION XX1 


evolution therefore is only a theory, a speculation. 
Christianity is a fact. 


Non-Catuoric TEstrmony 


A Recent Proclamation on Science and Religion, 
Washington, D. C., May 26, 1923 


“We, the undersigned, deeply regret that in recent 
controversies there has been a tendency to present 
science and religion as irreconcilable and antagonis- 
tic domains of thought, for, in fact, they meet dis- 
tinct human needs, and in the rounding out of human 
life they supplement rather than displace or oppose 
each other. 

“The purpose of science is to develop, without 
prejudice or preconception of any kind, a knowledge 
of the facts, the laws and the processes of nature. 
The even more important task of religion, on the 
other hand, is to develop the consciences, the ideals 
and the aspirations of mankind. Lach of these two 
activities represents a deep and vital function of 
the soul of man, and both are necessary for the life, 
the progress and the happiness of the human race. 

“Tt is a sublime conception of God which is fur- 
nished by science, and one wholly consonant with the 
highest ideals of religion, when it represents Him as 
revealing Himself through countless ages in the de 
velopment of the earth as an abode for man and in 
the age-long inbreathing of life into its constituent 


XXli CHRIST OR CHAOS 


matter, culminating in man ae his spiritual nature 
and all his Godlike powers.” 

Signed by forty distinguished Americans, enclud- 
ing the following: Charles D. Walcott, President 
of the National Academy of Sciences; President 
Angell, Yale; President Burton, University of Chi- 
cago; Dr. William J. Mayo; Fairfield Osborne, 
President of the American Museum of Natural His- 
tory; Professor M. Pupin, Columbia; Professor 
George D. Birkhoff, Harvard; Director Noyes, Cali- 
fornia Institute of Technology; Professor William 
W. Campbell, Director of Lick Observatory. 


“Man is the one being who can appreciate the in- 
finite variety and beauty of the world, the one 
being who can utilize in any adequate manner the 
myriad products of its mechanics and its chemistry. 
Man is the only being capable, in some degree, of 
comprehending and apprehending the foreordained 
method of a supreme mind. That is surely the glory 
and distinction of man—that he is continually and 
steadily advancing in the knowledge of the vastness 
and mystery of the universe in which he lives. We 
are forced to the assumption of an infinite God by 
the fact that our earth has developed life and mind 
and ourselves.” 


Aurrep Russet Watuace, Co-discoverer with 
Darwin of Natural Selection, The World of 
Infe, pp. 4038, 423. 


EVOLUTION ai 


“Every theory of evolution must be such as to ac- 
cord with facts of physics and chemistry, a primary 
necessity to which our predecessors paid small heed. 
Of the physics and chemistry of life we know next 
to nothing. Living things are found by a simple 
experiment to have powers undreamed of, and who 
knows what may be behind? My predecessor, Sir - 
Oliver Lodge, said last year that in physics the age 
is one of rapid progress and profound scepticism. 
In at least as high a degree this is true of Biology, 
and as a chief characteristic of modern evolutionary 
thought we must confess also to a deep but irksome 
humility in presence of great vital problems.” 

Pror. Witi1aAm Barsson, Presidential Ad- 
dress to the British Association. 


“As to what, if anything, is outside or behind this 
mechanism of Nature: as to whence or how it came 
about, or whither it is going: as to what it and what 
our consciousness of it really are, and why it is, and 
why we are here—modern science has no answer.” 

Sir Ray Lanxester, Science from an Hasy 
Chau. 


“The truths of religion and science are of two 
different spheres. Scientific analysis cannot possibly 
discover any fresh objection to the doctrine of the 
Trinity, the doctrine of Atonement, the doctrine of 
Grace or the doctrine of the Sacraments.” 

James Bowrina Moziry, Bampton Lecturer. 


XX1V CHRIST OR CHAOS 


“Tt is perhaps not too much to say that the more 
fully this conception of universal evolution is grasped, 
the more firmly a scientific doctrine of Providence 
will be established, and the stronger will be the pre- 
sumption of a future progress.” 

W. H. Lecxy, History of the Rise and Influ 
ence of the Spirit of Rationalism, Vol. I, p. 
316. 


“How many theories have I lived to see estab- 
lished and confuted! We are poor silly animals, we 
live for an instant upon a particle of a boundless 
universe, and are much like a butterfly that should 
argue about the nature of the seasons, and of what 
creates their vicissitudes, and does not exist itself 
to see one revolution of them.” 

Horacze Watrotr, to the Earl of Stafford, in 
his Letters. 


“Since there must have been something from eter- 
nity, because there is something now, the eternal 
Being must be an intelligent Being because there is 
intelligence now; for no man will venture to assert 
that non-entity can produce entity, or non-intelli- 
gence, intelligence. And such a Being must exist 
necessarily, whether things have been always as they 
are, or whether they have been made in time: be 
cause it is no more easy to conceive an infinite than 
a finite progression of effects without a cause.” 

Botinesroxe, Epistle L 


DARWINISM 


Some people are persuaded that Darwinism is true 
and that it is subversive of Christianity. Those thus 
persuaded would hardly care to read about religion 
at all. 

Darwinism is not true. This is a flat statement, 
but absolutely correct. Darwinism in itself means 
change of species by Natural Selection. Darwinism, 
in the hands of some of its advocates, has been made 
to mean man’s descent from the monkey; also Dar- 
winism popularly means evolution. Darwinism in 
all these meanings has been rejected by some of the 
foremost scientists of the world as we shall see by 
actual statements. 

The scientists whom I shall cite are those whom 
every real scientist must respect. In the face of their 
testimony it is hard to understand how le one will 
still maintain Darwinism. 

Darwin himself never taught specifically the de 
scent of man from monkey. It was Haeckel who 
saddled that on him. To do so Haeckel misrepre- 
sented Darwin and manufactured false evidence, as 
every scientist knows. It was Haeckel, a God-hater, 
who tried to use Darwin’s theory in order to do away 
with God altogether. It was Haeckel who gave the 


XXV 


XXV1 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


name Darwinism to the monkey theory of man’s 
origin. 

With regard to Natural Selection the foremost 
scientists in the world now reject it. I may mention 
Bateson, President of the British Association, one 
of the most learned scientific bodies of the world, 
Blanchard, Wigand, Wolff, Huber, Reinke, Virchow, 
Dreisch. 

Darwinism is not evolution but only a passing 
phase of it. Since the birth of modern Evolution 
in the last century, there have been three phases of 
it, Lamarckism, Darwinism and the present-day Evo- 
lution. Darwinism can disappear without affecting 
Evolution at ali. 

Revelation teaches us that man’s body is from 
the dust, and that it will return to dust, but that his 
soul is from God and will return to God. Darwinism 
has not proven that man’s body is from the beast, 
but even if it could be proved, it would not be against 
Revelation. Darwin never intended to do without 
God in the world, as some of his followers try to do. 
Here are his concluding words in his great book, The 
Origin of Species: ‘There is grandeur in this view 
of life with its several powers having been originally 
breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into 
one; and that whilst this planet has gone cycling on 
according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple 
a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most 
wonderful have been and are being evolved!” 


DARWINISM XXV1l 


Christianity can accept that view if it should ever 
be substantiated by facts. Time is the great test of 
truth. Theories which one generation holds as cer- 
tain are rejected by the next. A few years ago Dar- 
Wwinism was proclaimed as a new Gospel. To-day it 
is repudiated by most of its former advocates. Yet, 
in spite of this, there are teachers in our schools and 
universities who proclaim that it is a fact that man 
came from the monkey. There is not in the whole 
world a single bit of scientific evidence for man’s 
descent from the monkey as we shall see presently. 
Neither Paleontology with its fossils nor Biology 
with its various manifestations of life affords scien- 
tific proof of the descent of one real species from 
another. 

Yet Darwinism was the reason why many people 
rejected Revealed religion. True science will never 
be opposed to Revelation because God is the Author 
of both. As before stated, it is only when scientists 
leave their own field of experimentation and enter 
into that of speculation or metaphysics that they 
become antagonistic to religion. 

Facts and the classification of data are all right in 
their place. The scientist is at home in that sphere. 
But when he begins to draw conclusions, without hav- 
ing data, he is in a sphere where he does not belong. 
There are no data for the ultimate origin of life, nor 
for the ultimate origin of man. 

All the so-called missing links, such as the Pilt- 


XXV1ll CHRIST OR CHAOS 


down man, the Neanderthal man, the Trinal Ape-man 
and many others are repudiated by the best Pale- 
ontologists, as will be shown. Yet these fossils are 
reconstructed by supposed scientists and are on ex- 
hibition in museums and colleges as visible proof of 
man’s monkey ancestry. It is all the work of imagi- 
nation. It is an attempt to visualize a theory on no 
real scientific grounds since scientists themselves 
differ as to the nature of these fossil remains. 

Hence, it is only inference or speculation. The 
scientist may go astray here as well as any one else. 
Science has to do with the what of things, and their 
direct cause, not with the how, the ultimate cause, 
as has been said. It is only when scientists enter the 
field of the ultimate how that they become antago- 
nistic to Revelation. In this field their opinions are 
worth no more than would be those of a lens maker on 
the subject of astronomy. 


Non-Catuortic TESTIMONY 


Rudolph Virchow, a renowned scientist of the 20th 
century, founder of cellular pathology and distin- 
guished in Anthropology, states: 

“Natural science, so long as it remains science, 
works only with really existing objects. A hypoth- 
esis may be discussed, but its significance can be 
established only by producing actual proofs in its 
favor, either by experiments or direct observation. 


DARWINISM XX1X 


This, Darwinism has not succeeded in doing. In 
vain have its adherents sought for connecting links 
which should connect man with the monkey. Nota 
single one has been found. This so-called pro- 
anthropus which is supposed to represent this con- 
necting link has not appeared. No true scientist 
claims to have seen him.” 


Address at the 20th Congress of the German 
Anthropological Association. 


“At present it would be impossible to find any 
working naturalist who supposes that Darwinism is 
competent to explain all the phenomena of species 
formation.” 


Proressor Romaness, Journal of Innnean So- 
ciety, Vol. XIX. 


“The Darwinian theory of descent has not a single 
fact to confirm it in the realm of nature. It is not 
the result of scientific research, but purely the prod- 
uct of the imagination.” 


Proressor Fueiscuman, Dre Darwinsche 
Theorve. 


“In the first decade of the twentieth century it 
has become apparent that the days of Darwinism 
are numbered. Among its latest opponents are such 
savants as Eimer, Gustav Wolf, DeVries, Hoocke, 


XXX CHRIST OR CHAOS 


Von Wellstein, Fleischmann, Reinke, and many 
others.” 
‘Harrmann, Annalen der Naturphilosophie, Vol. 
II, 1903. 


“We go to Darwin for his incomparable collection 
of facts, we would fain emulate his scholarship, his 
width and his power of exposition, but to us he speaks 
no more with philosophic authority. We read his 
scheme of evolution as we would those of Lucretius 
or Lamarck, delighting in their simplicity and their 
courage.” 

Barsson, Presidential Address to British Asso- 
ciation. 


“When we descend to details we can prove that 
not one species has changed.” 
Darwin, Lefe and Letters, Vol. I, p. 210. 


“T for one can conscientiously declare that I never 
feel surprised at any one sticking to the belief of 
immutability.” 

Darwin, Ibid., p. 211. 

“In my most extreme fluctuations I have never 


been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence 


of God.” 
Darwin, Ibid., p. 274. 


“In no department of natural science has the at- 
tempt to draw general conclusions from an aggregate 


DARWINISM XXX1 


of facts been so much influenced by subjective opin- 
tons of the individual scientist as in the primitive 
history of mankind. On this subject it has fre- 
quently happened that views based on a few facts 
have been regarded as definitely obtained scientific 
results, by those who have not studied the matter 
closely, because these views have been enunciated 
with a peculiar assurance.” 


Pror. ScuwatsBe, Primetive History of Man. 


“Paleontology tells us nothing on the subject; it 
knows no ancestors of man.” 
Pror. Branco, Lecture on “Fossil Man,” Fifth 
Zodlogical Congress. 


“Darwinism is a fiction, a poetical accumulation 
of probabilities without proof, and of attractive ex- 
planations without demonstration.” 

Cuartes Rosin, Dictionnaire Encyclopedique 
des Sciences Médicales. 


“Tt is established that natural selection (Darwin- 
ism) cannot have originated any species.” 
Pror. Vines, Presidential Address to the Lin- 
nean Society, 1902. 


“A number of man’s most characteristic and 
noblest faculties, those which raise him furthest 
above the brutes, and open up possibilities of almost 
indefinite advancement, could not possibly have been 


XXxXli CHRIST OR CHAOS 


developed by means of the same laws which have de 
termined the progressive development of the or 
ganic world in general and also of man’s physical 
organism.” 
Wauuace, Co-discoverer with Darwin of Nat- 
ural Selection, in Darwinism, p. 474. 


“Much has been written on the ancestry of the 
horse. It has been maintained by many authors that 
2 continuous series of forms connecting it with the 
four-toed brachyodont Hyracathoride of the Eocene 
has been discovered, a proof of organic evolution. 
There are flaws in the chain of evidence which re- 
quire careful and detailed consideration. It is pos- 
sible that these difficulties and others will be over- 
come with the growth of knowledge, but it is neces- 
sary to take note of them, for in the search after 
truth nothing is gained by ignoring such apparent 
discrepancies between theory and fact.” 

Pror. A. Sepewick, Students’ Text Book of 
Zoology, p. 599. 


MIRACLES 


Miracle is the sign-language of God. When God 
wishes to assure mankind that He approves of a per- 
son or a message He does so by a divine sign. When 
kings send a representative with orders to a prince 
or noble they stamp the document with their seal. 
Sometimes they send their seal-ring itself as proof 
that the messenger is from the king. 

Christ came with a message from the King of 
Kings. It was a vital message to mankind. It meant 
that they who received it should know that they were 
the sons of God by adoption; it meant also that they 
must live as children of God, doing good and avoid- 
ing evil. Man has a tendency to evil, the result of 
original sin, and it requires effort to resist this ten- 
dency. It demands sacrifice to follow reason rather 
than passion. Hence Christ’s revelation, although 
promising membership in the Divine family also 
specified that none but those who were worthy should 
be the children of the Heavenly Father. 

Such a message, demanding, as it did, not only 
belief but an upright life, had need of God’s seal on 
it for acceptance. 

Hence Christ said: “. ... though you will not 

XXXill 


XXXIV CHRIST OR CHAOS 


believe me, believe the works, that you may know 
and believe that the Father is in me, and I in the 
Father” (John X, 38). He gave sight to the blind, 
cleansed the leper, gave back to the widow of Naim 
her boy who was being carried to the grave, and re- 
stored to Martha and Mary their brother Lazarus, 
who was dead and buried. 

These marvelous deeds were God’s sign language, 
indicating that Christ was what He claimed to be. 
Materialists deny the possibility of miracles because 
they say that nature’s laws admit of no violation. 
Nature is God’s servant. Nature’s laws are not vio- 
lated by miracles, any more than the orders of a gen- 
eral are violated if he makes a modification in the 
orders he has issued. We must remember that God 
is not like us; He is eternal; with Him it is always 
now,—there is no past or future with God. To a 
man walking along a road the part ahead is hidden 
and future, the part behind is past. An aviator with 
a field glass in an airplane sees the same road miles 
and miles both in front and rear of the pedestrian. 
The road is all present to the aviator, although future 
to the walker. 

In some such way God sees from the first moment 
of creation to the end of the world. Consequently 
He once and for all made adjustments which will 
occur to the end of time. In answer to prayer, He 
has made from the beginning such adaptations as 
result in what we call miracles. Any one who prays 


MIRACLES XXXV 


and at the same time denies miracles is guilty of 
mockery or stupidity. For prayer asks God’s assist- 
ance, and if everything was fixed by predetermined 
physical law, prayer would be useless, for God could 
not interfere. But Christ has taught us to pray. 
Hence He has taught us that miracles are not only 
possible but to be expected. 


Non-Catunoric Trstrmony 


“Whilst at his work, Pierre de Rudder had a frac- 
ture of his left leg. It was crushed by the trunk of 
a tree which fell on it. The fragments were so nu- 
merous that in shaking the limbs the bones could be 
heard rattling. Consolidation never took place in 
spite of many and the best doctors who attended him 
for six years. 

“Given up by all, this man was in despair when 
I had the opportunity of examining his leg. The 
lower part of the leg, with the foot, literally swung 
at the end of the limb, so that I could actually twist 
the heel round more than once. 

“When he went on pilgrimage to Lourdes his leg 
had been broken and he had hobbled on crutches for 
more than eight years. The lower part of the leg 
and foot hung like a rag. 

“The day he visited Lourdes he returned from the 
grotto dancing, without his crutches; he had walked 
several miles, delighted to take an exercise he had 
so long been deprived of. 


XXXVI CHRIST OR CHAOS 


“Naturally I went to see him, and, I may tell you 
in confidence, I did not believe in this cure. What | 
did I find? A leg so perfect that if I had not ex- 
amined it previously, I should have said it had never 
been broken. 

“Probably this letter will find you with M. Zola. 
If this be so, I should be glad for him to read it, 
and, if he would allow me, to say to him these few 
words: ‘Sir, I was an unbeliever as you are; 
de Rudder’s miracle opened my eyes, hitherto closed 
to the light. I still doubted sometimes, but I studied 
the Christian religion and prayed. Now I can affirm, 
on my honor, that I believe absolutely, and that with 
belief I have found happiness, and an interior peace, 
which I had never known before.’ ” 

Dr. Van Hoxstenpercur, Aug. 21, 1892, 
Lourdes, Bertrin, p. 183. 


PART I 
THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 





CHRIST OR CHAOS 


CHAPTER I 
GOD OR MATERIALISM 


OME would have us believe that everything is 
matter, maintaining that the world evolved 
itself into its present form. A moment’s con- 

sideration will show that this is not so. Matter is 
subject to physical law; the same substance always 
acts in the same way under the same circumstances. 
What imposed this law on matter? Not itself, be- 
cause nothing material can regulate itself. A ma- 
chine acts in the way its inventor determines. As 
well expect a machine to determine how it will 
operate as for matter to determine itself. Evolution 
itself postulates a cause. 

Something inherent in matter causes it to act in a 
certain way and no other; some power imposed this 
necessity on matter, and is therefore a power above 
matter since matter necessarily does its bidding. 


Some say that matter is eternal. Matter cannot be 
1 


2 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


eternal because the eternal is infinite, and the infinite 
is not subject to regulation as we know matter to be. 
The universe is a vast, intricate, accurate and per- 
fectly adjusted machine. Its millions of parts all 
harmonize and operate flawlessly, showing marvelous 
design and purpose. 

A machine supposes an intelligent maker outside 
itself. The material universe which always acts by 
fixed law supposes a law-giver outside itself. This 
law-giver is the Creator. No one can make a law 
unless he has intelligence. The Creator, is, there- 
fore, an intelligent Being. An intelligent being is a 
person. The world, therefore, is made by a personal 
Being whom we call God. Materialism is, therefore, 
false. 


Non-Catuoitic Trstrimony 


“Since whatsoever is the first eternal being must 
necessarily be cogitative; and whatsoever is first of 
all things must necessarily contain in it and actually 
have at least all the perfections that can ever after 
exist; nor can it ever give to another any perfection 
that it hath not either actually in itself, or at least 
in a higher degree; it necessarily follows that the 
first eternal being cannot be matter.” 


Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understand- 
ing, Bk. 4, Chap. LX. 


GOD OR MATERIALISM 3 


‘Although we grant that there is a permanent ele- 
ment in the physical universe, something in matter 
itself, which is self-existent and eternal, we still need, 
in order to account for the universe which we know, 
an Kternal Intelligence. The universe regarded even 
only so far as it is admitted by all materialists, no 
less than by theists and pantheists, to be an effect, 
cannot be explained, as materialists think, merely 
physically. The atoms of matter are, it is said, eter- 
nal and immutable. Grant them to beso. There are, 
however, countless millions of them, and, manifestly, 
the universe is one, is a single, magnificent and com- 
plicated system, is characterized by a marvellous 
unity in variety. We must be informed how the 
universe came to be a universe, how it came to have 
the unity which underlies its diversity,—if it re- 
sulted from a countless multitude of ultimate causes. 
Did the atoms take counsel together and devise a 
common plan and work it out? That hypothesis is 
unspeakably absurd, yet it is rational in comparison 
with the notion that these atoms combined by mere 
chance, or by chance produced such a universe as 
that in which we live. Grant all the atoms of matter 
to be eternal, grant all the properties and forces 
which, with the smallest degree of plausibility, can 
be claimed for them to be eternal and immutable, 
and it is still beyond all expression improbable that 
these atoms, with these forces if unarranged, uncom- 
bined, ununified, unutilized by a presiding mind, 


4 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


would give rise to anything entitled to be called a 
universe.” 


Rosert Furr, D.D., LL.D., F.R.S.E., of the 
University of Edinburgh, Theism, Baird 
Lecture. 


“The mechanism of the universe is so complicated 
that no man can say that it is closed to Divine inter- 
ference. Especially is this seen to be the case since 
we know that the free will of man does pierce the 
jounts of nature’s harness and interfere with its order 
to a limited extent. . . . The regular course of nature 
is interfered with every time a savage chips a flint 
implement or builds a canoe, or by friction makes a 
fire. We cannot banish God from the universe with- 
out first stultifying ourselves and reducing man’s free 
will to the level of a mere mechanical force. But 
man is more than that; and this everyone knows.” 

Grorce Freprerick Wricut, D.D., LL.D., in 
“Fundamentals,” VII, pp. 18, 19. 


CHAPTER II 
GOD OR CHANCE 


OME say that chance rules the world, but 
reflection will show that this is not so. There 
is no chance about mathematics, and the world 

is as exact as mathematics. Every farmer knows how 
regular are the phases of the moon. No chance there. 
Every sailor knows how regular are the tides. No 
chance there. Every astronomer knows how regular 
is the course of the planets. Nochance there. Every 
scientist knows how regular are the physical and 
chemical operations of matter. No chance there. 

It is the same with daily life. The farmer knows 
if he wants certain crops he must sow certain seed. 
Chance would not manage a farm. The builder knows 
that if he wants brick and stone he must get them 
and not expect chance to provide them. The sailor 
knows he must steer for port and not leave it to 
chance to get there. 

The orderly processes of nature postulate rational 
control. Not only is each particle of matter under 
law, but everything in the material universe is part 


of one vast, coordinated whole. Everything is ad- 
5 


6 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


mirably adjusted to one universal design, hence the 
world is ruled by intelligence. 

There is no machinery in the whole world to com- 
pare with the world-machine. For vastness as well 
as smallness the universe is a marvelous mechanism. 
The stupendous reaches of the firmament stagger the 
imagination, while the infinitesimally small atoms 
which are hardly measurable confound the mind of 
the analyst. Yet firmament and atom are under abso- 
lute law. The astronomer as well as the chemist 
marvel at the exactitude with which the heavens as 
well as the tiniest particle of matter are regulated. 
There are diversity and unity in all creation which 
postulate the controlling and directive power of an 
intelligent Being. Therefore the world is ruled by — 
an intelligent Being. This intelligent government of 
the world we call Providence. 


Non-Catuotic TEstrmony 


“The idea of design has a very great significance 
and application in the organic world. We do un- 
deniably perceive a purpose in the structure and in 
the life of an organism. The plant and animal seem 
to be controlled by a definite design in the combina- 
tion of their several parts, just as clearly as we see 
in the machines which man invents and constructs ; 
as long as life continues, the functions of the several 


GOD OR CHANCE 7 


organs are directed to definite ends, just as in the 
operation of the various parts of a machine.” 
Harcxe., Riddle of the Universe at Close of the 
19th Century, p. 98. 

“To begin with, an eye is found, not in one man 
only, but in millions of men, each separately show- 
ing marks of design, and each separately requiring 
a designer. Secondly, the human eye is only one 
example out of hundreds in the human body. The 
ear or the mouth would prove the conclusion equally 
well, and so would the lungs and the heart. And 
these various organs, it should be noticed, do not 
exist merely as individual organs, but as component 
parts of the human body, to which, as well as to each 
other, they are all adapted. And if a hundred inde- 
pendent organs showing design would require a de- 
signer, still more will they do so if, instead of being 
independent, they are adapted to one another. More- 
over, the mend of man has to be accounted for, as 
well as his body; and if the unforeseen action of 
atoms could not have produced a human body, with 
its wonderful marks of design, still less could they 
have produced a human mind able to know and argue 
about them... . 

“The marks of design in nature afford what seems 
to be overwhelming evidence in favour of the fore- 
knowledge of the Creator.” 

W. H. Turton, The Truth of Christianity, pp. 
20, 32. 


8 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


“What can be more foolishly arrogant and unbe- 
coming than for a man to think that he has a mind 
and understanding in him, but yet in all the universe 
besides there is no such thing? Or that those things 
which, with the utmost stretch of his reason he can 
scarce comprehend, should be moved and managed 
without any reason at all?’ 


Cicero, De Legibus, Bk. II. 


“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets 
and comets could only proceed from the counsel and 
dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” 


Sir Isaac Newton, “Life,” prefacing 
Princijna. 


“Every person who has observed the springing of 
the grass and grain and the budding of flowers, who 
has taken but a passing survey of his own bodily 
frame or of the motions of the heavenly bodies, has 
had the idea impressed upon his mind of reigning 
order and wisdom. The harmonious colors, and the 
typical forms of plants and animals everywhere meet- 
ing and delighting the eyes, the mathematical shapes, 
—as in the hexagonal cells of the bee-hive and the 
numerical relations of parts,—as in the organs of 
flowers, which are ever furnishing a pleasant exercise 
to the intellect,—all show that the forces of nature 
move in numbered squadrons, with measured step, 


GOD OR CHANCE 9 


and on a predetermined plan, as if under the com- 
mand of a presiding intelligence.” 
James McCosu, LL.D., The Method of the 


Divine Government, Chap. I. 


“No number of material atoms, although eternal 
and endowed with mechanical force, can explain the 
unity and order of the universe, and therefore the 
supposition of their existence does not free us from 
the necessity of believing in a single intelligent Cause, 
a Supreme Mind, to move and mould, combine and 
adjust, the ultimate atoms of matter into a single 
and orderly system.” 


Ropert Fruint, Theism. Baird Lecture. 


CHAPTER III 
MAN IS MORE THAN MATTER 


AN thinks. Mere matter cannot think, so 
man is more than matter. Man com- 
mands and controls matter, so he is su- 

perior to it. Man invents and composes, something 
neither matter nor animals can do. Man looks into 
the future and plans for what may happen; he calcu- 
lates possibilities and probabilities, foresees contin- 
gencies and makes conditional or absolute arrange- 
ments. After making plans, he may change them 
or discard them. Animals do everything by fixed 
laws called instinct. Plants follow the laws of vege- 
table life. Except by man’s interference, animals 
and plants are dominated by nature’s fixed laws. 

But man dominates himself, he is superior to en- 
vironment, the lure of the senses and his own inclina- 
tions. And above all, it is in the realm of the im- 
material that he shows he is more than matter. 

Man has ideas of things which the senses do not 
reach, as for instance, eternity, infinctude, futurity, 
honor, endless, abstract. There is, therefore, in man 


something more than sense-perception such as animals 
10 


MAN IS MORE THAN MATTER 11 


have. Animals act by instinct which never varies, 
whereas man acts as he wills. Of his own accord 
he may do what pains him and cease doing what 
pleases him. His will often forces his body against 
its inclinations. There is, therefore, in man a power 
superior to matter, which thinks and invents, and 
also dominates matter. Hence man is more than 
matter. 


Non-Catuorttic TEstimMony 


“There is no charge to which materialism seems 
more justly liable than that it renders anything like 
a fixed code of morals impossible. The logic of a 
system which denies freedom and regards human ac- 
tion as the product of causes over which the actor 
has no control, appears to justify the conclusion that 
all actions are equally right or legitimate, those of 
the man who is the slave of animal passion not less 
than those of the man who obeys reason and lives a 
sober, benevolent life. . . . The materialists of the 
last century were not at all concerned with this con- 
sequence of their system, but frankly acknowledged 
that morality was a purely personal affair, and that 
the only rule of conduct that could be laid down was: 
very man to his taste. . . 

“All I know is that the phenomena of mind are 
here, constituting a whole spiritual world in which 
materialism has no part.” 

A. B. Brucs, D.D., Apologetics, pp. 100, 108. 


12 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


“Some have indeed said that the soul is material, 
but I can scarcely believe that any man has thought 
it who knew how to think, for all the conclusions 
of reason enforce the immateriality of the mind, and 
all the notices of sense and investigations of science 
concur to prove the unconsciousness of matter.” 


SAMvuEL Jounson, Rasselas. 


CHAPTER IV 
MAN IS COMPOSED OF BODY AND SOUL 


V QHE power in man which thinks, invents, 
calculates and decides, we call his soul. It 
is the soul that makes him man. His body 

is animal, his soul is spiritual. He is a rational 

animal. The soul controls the conduct of man. Man 

may keep or break laws. A thief, a drunkard, a 

libertine, a criminal of any kind may know that he 

is bringing penalty, ruin or death on himself by 
his conduct, but he may go ahead, he is physically 
free. Man may defy God Himself, and he does when 
he deliberately chooses to do what he knows is 
wrong. But he must give an account of his free- 
will; God, who made man free, has not renounced 

His authority over him. By conscience, which is 

God’s law for mankind, He declares how man should 

live. Some people want to live as they like, regard- 

less of God. They want to be a law to themselves. 
The Creator who has endowed man with free-will 
has indicated how He wants him to use it, namely 
by living as a rational being, acknowledging God as 
his master, by doing His will. God’s will is funda- 
13 


14 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


mentally made known to us by conscience. Because 
some people want to do away with conscience, they 
try to persuade themselves that they are ruled by 
physical forces. The abolition of conscience leaves 
man his own master and law-giver, thus flattering his 
pride and giving his passions free rein. Hence the 
attraction of materialism. But the Creator will not 
be balked by the creature; the soul of man must one 
day answer for its responsibility. Although en- 
dowed with free-will, man must use it as His Master 
ordains or suffer the consequences. 


Non-Catuortic TEstrmony 


“Altogether, the special operations of the mind,— 
the recognition of an event as past by the memory, 
the remembrance of a mother long since ascended 
into glory, the tracing of an effect through a long 
process to a remote cause, the discovery of a new 
planet by mathematical ratiocination before the tele- 
scope had alighted upon it, the brilliant fancies and 
wide imaginings of the poet, the fondness of a mother 
for her son, the refusal to tell a lie when strongly 
tempted, the resolution of the sailor to cast himself 
into the sea to preserve the life of a fellow-creature 
at the risk of his own, the abhorrence of sin on the 
part of the sanctified mind, the idea of God and 
of holiness, the constant aim to reach the purity of 
heaven,—these, considered simply as phenomena, be- 


MAN IS COMPOSED OF BODY AND SOUL 15 


long to an entirely different order from heat, or me- 
chanical power, or an electric current, or chemical 
affinity: we feel that there is an incongruity in the 
very proposal to weigh or measure them, and there 
is no proof that they can be converted into a physical 
force, or that a physical force can be converted into 
them.” 


James MoCosu, D.D., LL.D., Christiantty and 
Positunsm. p. 216. 


CHAPTER V 
THERE IS A FUTURE LIFE 


AN knows that it is right to do certain 

things, and wrong to do other things. 

Even the savage knows right from wrong. 

As stated before, this knowledge is conscience,—the 

Creator’s voice telling the creature, man, to do good 
and avoid evil. 

The Creator is the Law-Giver of mankind. Every 
law-giver wants his law observed. City, County and 
State enforce the observance of the laws they make. 
The Law-Giver of mankind leaves man physically 
free to keep or break His law. Does He not, there- 
fore, care for its observance? It would seem that 
He does not. The thief often thrives and the honest 
man frequently goes hungry. Since God does not 
enforce His law in this life, it is either because He 
does not care for its observance or because there is a 
future life where He rewards the good and punishes 
the wicked. It would be absurd for God to make laws 
and not care for their observance. Hence there is 
a future life. There, God justifies His dealings with 
mankind, and man is rewarded or punished as he 


deserves. 
16 


THERE IS A FUTURE LIFE 17 


Moreover, unless there is a future life, man is not 
only an enigma, but also, without fault of his own, 
a failure. His whole nature yearns for what life 
cannot give, complete happiness. This universal 
craving of mankind for complete happiness is not 
satisfied here. This craving is part of man, and 
unsatisfied, it leaves him incomplete. 

Man, who is the Creator’s masterpiece, would thus 
be out of harmony with creation. The Creator would 
be working at cross purposes, implanting in man an 
instinct without an objective. Since, therefore, this 
life does not afford an object answering to human 
nature’s universal instinct, it follows that, unless God 
creates in vain, there is a future life which responds 
to this instinctive call of humanity. 


Non-Catuortic TESTIMONY 


“The sublime hope is sure and steadfast that some 
sweet day the ten times ten millions who inhabit 
the earth shall be in glorified bodies, in eternal do- 
minion, like the body of Jesus after He had risen 
from the tomb.” 


J. Nessrt Witson, Why God Made Man, p. 
284. 


“Tt is scarcely to be imagined that Infinite Benevo- 
lence would create a being capable of enjoying so 
much more than is here to be enjoyed and qualified 
by nature to prolong pain by remembrance and an- 


18 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


ticipate it by terror, if he were not designed for some- 
thing nobler and better than a state in which many 
of his faculties can serve only for his torment.” 


SaMvuEL Jounson, “The Adventurer,” Dec. 29, 
1753. 


“The life and spirit of all our actions is the resur- 
rection, and a stable apprehension that our ashes shall 
enjoy the fruits of our pious endeavors; without this, 
all religion is a fallacy.” 


Siz Tuomas Browne, Religio Medici. 


“Every wise man, therefore, will consider this life 
only as it may conduce to the happiness of the other, 
and cheerfully sacrifice the pleasures of a few years 
to those of an eternity.” 


JosEePH Appison, Hvidences of the Christian 
Religion. 


CHAPTER VI 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 


ATTER never perishes but merely 
changes. For instance, wood does not 
cease to exist when it is burned, but is 

changed into ashes, smoke and various gases. These 
elements unite with others and form new substances. 
This, in the language of science, is the indestructi- 
bility of matter. Matter changes or is destroyed by 
being broken up into its component parts. 

It is hard for us to realize what the soul is. We 
cannot imagine what it is like since there can be no 
image of the soul, and without an image of some 
sort, we cannot imagine. But we can understand 
what it is. Our spiritual faculty can understand 
what we cannot imagine, as for example, futurity. 
As futurity has neither color, size nor weight, you 
cannot form a picture of it, but you can understand 
it. It is what is called an idea. Ideas are real; they 
make history, but they can be grasped by reason only, 
not by imagination. 

The soul is a spiritual substance, incapable of be- 
ing imagined. It has no parts, neither has it size, 

19 


20 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


weight, color nor measure; hence it cannot be divided, 
changed or destroyed. By its very nature it will last 
forever, it is immortal. Materialists are, therefore, 
in error when they say that man’s career ends here. 
Man likes to be a law to himself, hence he listens to 
materialists who deny that we need religion. But 
the soul is immortal, and, in the life beyond, it 
will have to give an account of its conduct to its 
Creator and Judge. 


Non-Catuotic TESTIMONY 


“Our argument, then, unfolds itself as follows: 
(a) We take the incompleteness of human life here 
on earth as witness for its continuance hereafter. 
. . . (b) We emphasize the value of personality. 
It is not to be judged by physical or biological 
standards alone. For it is man’s spiritual endow- 
ment which is his peculiar crown. His spiritual 
capacities call for immortality. No talk that, though 
the individual perishes, the race continues, will 
satisfy us. or what is of value is the moral achieve- 
ment of the individual, what he has won in his 
spiritual wrestling with evil, what he has yet to win 
if further opportunity is offered. The race may have 
a character, that is, it may represent a summation of 
qualities, but it has no personal character; and it is 
this latter, with all which it implies of moral effort, 
with all its sanctities of failure and triumph, or 


IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 21 


remorse and aspiration, which we demand shall 
continue.” 


Vernon F, Storr, M.A., Christiantty and Im- 
mortality, pp. 48, 49. 


“The true existence of man is indeed scarcely be- 
gun on earth. There is an immortality awaiting hin, » 
and all that is most worthy of being prized in the 
short period of his mortal life is the relation which 
it may bear to those endless ages which are to fol- 
low it.” 


Tuomas Brown, University of Edinburgh, lec- 
tures on The Philosophy of the Human Mind. 


“There is something so pitifully mean in the in- 
verted ambition of that man who can hope for an- 
nihilation and please himself to think that his whole 
fabric shall one day crumble into dust and mix with 
the mass of inanimate beings, that it equally deserves 
our admiration (wonder) and our pity. The mystery 
of such men’s unbelief is not hard to be penetrated ; 
and indeed amounts to nothing more than a sordid 
hope that they shall not be immortal because they 
dare not be so.” 


JosEpH Appison, Huidences of the Christian 
Religion. 


“Neither experience nor science has given man the 
idea of immortality. The world about him does not 


22 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


prove it, his mind has not invented it. But the idea 
of immortality rises from the very depths of his 
soul,—he feels, he sees, he knows that he is im- 
mortal.” 
Francois Guizot, Méditations et Etudes 
Morales. 


OCHA PEER VIEL 
THE CREATOR AND MANKIND 
ONSCIENCE is the bond between the 


Creator and His creature, man. The Maker 

of the world has imposed His will on all 
things. We call this will the Law of Nature. It 
rules by fixed laws the firmament and the elements of 
the earth, animals it rules by instinct. But what 
rules man? Conscience. Conscience is God’s will 
conveyed to man. 

Since man is physically free, he can disregard 
conscience, but in the end he cannot disregard God. 
God could stop all the evil in the world if He wished 
to, but He would then be destroying the free will He 
has bestowed on man. If evil were not permitted in 
this world, there would be no choice between virtue 
and wickedness. Without choice there is no freedom 
of will for mortals, for if man could only do right in 
this life, he would not be free. But man must answer 
to God for the use he makes of free will. This brings 
man in direct relation with his Maker. This relation 
is called Religion,—God’s appointed means of aiding 
man to live right. Religion is a communication of 

23 


24 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


the Creator to the creature. It informs us what God 
is and what we are. It tells us why we are in this 
world, whence we came and whither we go. It points 
out our duty to God and declares His rewards for our 
fidelity. Indeed, religion is a beacon which guides 
the human wayfarer to eternal life. 


Non-Catuortic TESTIMoNny 


“He that feels himself alarmed by his conscience, 
anxious for the attainment of a better state and 
afflicted by the memory of his past faults, may justly 
conclude that the great work of repentance has begun, 
and hope by retirement and prayer, the natural and 
religious means of strengthening his conviction, to 
impress upon his mind such a sense of the Divine 
Presence as may overpower the blandishments of 
secular delights and enable him to advance from one 
degree of holiness to another, till death shall set him 
free from doubt and contest, misery and temptation.” 

Samus, Jounson, “The Rambler,” Apr. 6, 
1751. 


“But the existence of the moral law, revealed in 
man’s perceptions of obligation, and in his admiration 
of virtue, is his crowning glory. Every man carries 
about with him a sense of responsibility. . . . The 
mental faculty which discerns the beauty of a right 
choice is called conscience, and everywhere enforces 
upon man the obligation so to exercise his voluntary 


THE CREATOR AND MANKIND ~ 25 


powers that the moral beauty, of which Kant so 
eloquently speaks, shall belong to the soul. Con- 
science is an ever present force in human nature. It 
slumbers not except when man sleeps. It creates an 
unfailing demand for some kind of religion. Re 
ligious belief is so nearly universal among men, and 
is so peculiar to man, that some naturalists have - 
characterized him as a ‘religious animal.’ ... 

“A recent remark of an eminent physicist,—the 
late Professor J. Clerk Maxwell,—is no less pene- 
trating than witty. He said he had examined every 
system of atheism he could lay hands on, and had 
found that each system implied a God at the bottom 
to make it workable.” 


Grorce Frepertck Wrraut, Scientific Aspects 
of Christian Hvidences, pp. 114, 115, 250. 


CHAPTER VIII 
GOD’S LAW 


ONSCIENCE is God’s law written on the 
heart of man. It was proclaimed by the 
Decalogue or Ten Commandments. 

The Decalogue is a proclamation of the Creator’s 
will in regard to the duties and conduct of man. 
Everyone knows he should do good and avoid evil. 
The Decalogue specifies what is good and what is 
evil. Man left to himself is prone to make evil good, 
and good evil, according as it serves his purpose, but 
the Decalogue, once for all, regulates human con- 
science in the great essentials of life. 

Conscience may be distorted by malice or igno- 
rance. The Decalogue rectifies such a conscience and 
brings it into accord with the Law-Giver of mankind, 
with the result that he who guides his life by a right 
conscience is in favor with the Creator. 

God’s law is for man’s good. No law may be broken 
without detriment either to him who breaks it or to 
some one else. Man is physically free to keep or break 
God’s law, but he must one day face the Law-Giver. 


Man is selfish, inclined to favor himself, and to 
26 


GOD’S LAW 27 


justify his actions even when they are wrong. Hence 
it is necessary that there be a standard of morality 
and a voice to proclaim the truth. God could do this 
in various ways, but He has seen fit to do it by the 
Decalogue in the Old Testament, and by His Church 
in the New Testament. 

As His Church was established by Jesus Christ, 
it is vital to know Who and What Christ is. 


Non-Catuoutic TErstrmony 


“Tt scarcely requires stating that modern ideas 
about sin receive no countenance from Scripture, 
which never speaks about sin as ‘good in the making,’ 

. . as ‘a necessity determined by heredity and en- 
vironment,’ ... but always as the free act of an 
intelligent, moral and responsible being asserting 
himself against the will of his Maker, the supreme 
Ruler of the universe. . . . Hence, sin is usually 
described in the Sacred Volume by terms that indi- 
cate with perfect clearness its relation to the Divine 
will or law... . 

“By this (the culpability of sin) is meant not 
merely the blameworthiness of sin as an act, inex- 
cusable on the part of its perpetrator, who... 
ought never to have committed it; nor only the 
heinousness of it, as an act done against light and 
love bestowed on the doer of it, and in flagrant op- 
position to the holiness and majesty of the Lawgiver, 
so that He, the Lawgiver, cannot but regard it with 


28 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


abhorrence as an act abominable in His sight, and 
repel from His presence as well as exclude from His 
favor the individual who has become chargeable with 
it; but over and above these representations of sin 
which are all Scriptural, by the culpability of sin 
is intended its exposure to the penalty affixed by 
Divine justice to transgression.” 

Tuomas WHITELAW, M.A., in “Fundamentals,” 

xD. 8 


CHAPTER IX — 
JESUS CHRIST 


HE Christian religion is named after Christ. 

It claims to be the sole true and divine re- 

ligion. Christ is the Founder of the Chris- 

tian religion. Unless He is divine, as he claimed.to 

be, His religion is neither divine nor true. Christ 

is either God or an imposter. He solemnly declared 

He was God. If His declaration was false, He was 

either a liar or a lunatic; if His declaration was true, 
He is divine and His Church is divine. 

There is no evading the conclusion that Christ 
is either divine or an imposter. He. repeatedly 
affirmed that He was the true Son of God, asserting 
that He was all-powerful even as His Eternal Father. 
If He was not divine, He deliberately led His fol- 
lowers into error, for He commanded them to pro- 
claim and confess Him divine before men, and to lay 
down their lives if necessary in so confessing Him. 

The most hostile critics declare that Christ was 
the most perfect being among mankind. Such a 
one could not be guilty of self-deception nor decep- 
tion of others. Unless Christ was an evil man, He 


was God. 
29 


30 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


Jesus Christ, therefore, is the most important per- 
sonality in the history of the world. If He is what 
He claimed to be, His Church is what He declared 
it to be; if He is what He claimed to be, then every 
human being must be vitally and everlastingly con- 
cerned, for He came on a mission to each one of us 
personally, and our eternal destiny depends on our 
relation with him. What do you think of Christ? 


Non-Catnortic Trstrmony 


“We now advance to the central position which is 
occupied by the Christian advocate, and which may 
be truly said to command all the remaining positions, 
in the defence of the citadel of truth. The substance 
of Christianity as a religion is the mission to the 
world of the Lord Jesus Christ: His person, His 
character, His doctrine, His work, form the main 
features in the Christian revelation. Take away 
Jesus Christ from the Bible, and its distinctive 
character as a Divine revelation is gone. Take away 
the reality of a personal Redeemer, and His influence 
from the history of Christianity, and it becomes an 
empty dream and illusion... . 

“The moral perfection of Jesus Christ was not at- 
tained (if perfection could be attained), but may be 
seen in the narrative to belong to Him from the first. 
He begins life as a morally perfect being, and the 
portrait which we look upon in the Gospels, taken at 


JESUS CHRIST 31 


different times, when He was a child, when He came 
forth from obscurity to a public ministry, when He 
finished His course at three and thirty years of age 
on the cross, though they are different aspects of His 
person, all agree in moral perfection.” 


R. A. Reprorp, The Christian’s Plea Agamst 
Modern Unbelief, pp. 186, 188. 


CHAPTER X 
JESUS CHRIST IS GOD 


ESUS CHRIST solemnly declared that He 

was God. He meant that He was God in the 

true sense; otherwise, the Jews would not 
have accused Him of blasphemy. In declaring He 
was God, He did not lie, for He is admitted by all 
men to be the most perfect person in the history of 
mankind, and the most perfect person would not 
lie. Neither was He a lunatic, for all men admit 
that His is the best balanced personality in history. 
Surely, the best balanced person would not be under 
a delusion as to His own personality. Consequently, 
since Christ was neither a liar nor a lunatic, He is 
what He said He was—God. But His divinity does 
not rest on His word alone. He spoke with the au- 
thority of God. He performed deeds which only 
God could do, and He foretold the future which is 
known to God alone. He said: “If I do not the 
works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do: 
though you will not believe me, believe the works, 
that you may know and believe that the Father is 
in me, and I in the Father.” (John x, 37-8). We 


must reject all human testimony and the best his- 
32 


JESUS CHRIST IS GOD 33 


torical evidence if we do not accept the divinity of 
Jesus Christ.* 


Non-Catnoric TEStimMony 


“The deity of Christ is in solution in every page . 
of the New Testament. Every word that is spoken 
of Him, every word which He is reported to have 
spoken of Himself, is spoken on the assumption that 
Heis God. And this is the reason why the ‘criticism’ 
which addresses itself to eliminating the testimony 
of the New Testament to the deity of our Lord has 
set itself a hopeless task. The New Testament itself 
would have to be eliminated. Nor can we get be 
hind this testimony. Because the deity of Christ 
is the presupposition of every word of the New Testa- 
ment, it is impossible to select words out of the New 
Testament from which to construct earlier docu- 
ments in which the deity of Christ shall not be 
assumed. The assured conviction of the deity of 
Christ is coeval with Christianity. There never was 
a Christianity, neither in the times of the Apostles 
nor since, of which this was not a prime test.” 


Bensamin B. Warrrerp, D.D., LL.D., of 
Princeton Theological Seminary, The Deity 
of Christ, pp. 28, 24, in “Fundamentals,” I. 


x *See The Credentials of Christianity, by Martin J. Scott, 
J 


34 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


*‘T believe in the Incarnation.” 
Extract from the Last Will and Testament of 
J. Pierpont Morgan. 


“Tf the death of Socrates be that of a sage, the 
life and death of Jesus are those of a God.” 


JEAN JAcguEs Rovussxav, Hmule, I, 4. 


CHAPTER XI 
JESUS CHRIST IS GOD 


OME modern sceptics, unable to meet the 
argument that Christ, being so perfect, was 
neither a deceiver nor deceived when He de- 

clared He was God, have recourse to the statement 
that He was not so perfect as He is portrayed in the 
Gospels. They say He lived among an ignorant or 
eredible people who exaggerated His virtues. To 
this we reply that, on the contrary, the Jews in 
Christ’s time were the keenest critics and closest ob- 
servers in the annals of history. They were not 
only sharp but hostile critics, and it was they who 
said: ... “Never did man speak, like this man,” 
(John vil, 46), and it was to them Christ said: 
“Which of you shall convince Me of sin?’ . . 
‘(John viii, 46). 

Other modern sceptics say that Christ did not 
mean He was truly God when He said He was God, 
but that He was employing Oriental exaggeration, 
or symbolism, or some figure of speech. But the 
Jews of his time did not think so. They did not 
accuse Him of blasphemy and put Him to death for 


a figure of speech. Christ, therefore, the most per- 
35 


36 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


fect being in history, was neither false nor figurative 
nor deluded when He declared He was God. The 
argument stands. Christ was God or an imposter. 
Therefore, He is God. 

Moreover in the person of Christ were fulfilled 
all the prophecies concerning the Messias. He came 
at the time, at the place and in the manner foretold. 
His Life, Passion and Resurrection were exactly as 
prophesied centuries before. To the mind of Pascal 
this was the strongest argument for the divinity of 
Christ. 


Non-Catuortic Trestrmony 


“T have wondered what those self-coustituted in- 
structors of the race can have in their minds when 
they say that Christ was the best teacher that the 
world ever saw, and yet find this teacher saying that 
He is the Son of God, the Head of the Church, and 
is from everlasting to everlasting. If He was a per- 
fect teacher, why are not these truths to be accepted ? 
If he was mistaken, how can He be regarded as the 
best teacher that the world ever heard ?” 


Joun Hatt, in Gaston Church, Philadelphia, 
Jan. 27, 1898. 


“Christ must have been either insane or divine. 
If He was a man, for Him to have made such claims 
for Himself as He did indicated insanity. On the 


JESUS CHRIST IS GOD 37 


supposition that He was divine, these claims are 
rational and indicate a being transcending the nature 


of man.” 
Henry Warp BEECHER. 


“The testimony of eighteen centuries as to the 
impossibility of explaining the personality of Christ . 
on humanitarian grounds, is in itself an evidence of 
His divinity. . . . A thousand attempts to account 
for the life of Christ without admitting his divinity 
have been made. Not one of them has succeeded in 
winning the assent of any great mass of men for any 
great length of time. They have hardly survived the 


lives of those who have invented them.” 
Henry Van Dykz, 


CHAPTER XII 
JESUS CHRIST AND OURSELVES 


ESUS CHRIST is the dividing point in the 
history of mankind. The Christian era be- 

gins with Him. We date our years B. C., 

or A. D., which mean before Christ or after Christ. 
Christmas, which is the most joyous festival of man- 
kind, means Christ’s Mass, the Mass which cele- 
brates His coming into this world. Christ gave to 
mankind its most beneficial charter, the Brotherhood 
of Man. Before Christ there were no hospitals, no 
asylums, no homes for the aged, no organizations 
for the relief of human misery. Prisoners of war 
were butchered or made slaves; women and children 
were put to the sword, except the most beautiful who 
were reserved for a worse fate. A man could put his 
children to death at will regardless of the mother’s 
feelings, because woman was merely the plaything of 
man’s lust, to be discarded at his will. The greatest 
blessings among mankind to-day are the result of 
Christ in the world. We should not forget that. 
He came to give us better life here and eternal life 


hereafter. He is the Light of the world. A Beacon 
38 


JESUS CHRIST AND OURSELVES 39 


guides, it does not compel. If we reject Christ, we 
reject peace here and happiness hereafter. 


Non-Catnoric TEstrmony 


“T think Christ’s system of morals and religion, 
as He left them with us, the best the world ever saw 
or is likely to see.” 


BengaMin FRANKLIN, quoted m “Fundamen- 
tals,” II, Chap. 7. 


“Tn the first rank of this grand family of the true 
sons of God we must place Jesus. . . . Repose now 
in Thy glory, noble founder! Thy work is finished, 
Thy divinity established. Thou shalt become the 
corner-stone of humanity so entirely that to tear 
Thy name from the world would rend it to its 
foundations.” 


Ernest Renan, quoted in “Fundamentals,” IT, 
Chap. 7. 


“The wildest dreams of their rabbis have been far 
exceeded. Has not Jesus conquered Europe and 
changed its name to Christendom ?”’ 

Bengamin Disranxt, quoted in“ Fundamentals,” 


II, Chap. 7. 


“It was reserved for Christianity to present to 
the world an ideal character which, through all the 
changes of eighteen centuries, has inspired the hearts 


40 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


of men with an impassioned love; has shown itself 
capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments 
and conditions; has been not only the highest pattern 
of virtue, but the strongest incentive to its practice. 
. . - The simple record of these three short years 
of active life has done more to regenerate and soften 
mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers 
and all the exhortations of moralists. This has been 
the well-spring of whatever is best and purest in the 
Christian life.” 
Lecoxy, Huropean Morals. 


“The life of Christ concerns Him who, being the 
holiest among the mighty and the mightiest among 
the holy, lifted with His pierced hands empires off 
their hinges and turned the stream of centuries out 
of its channel, and still governs the ages.” 


JEAN Pauxt RIcHTER. 


“The being who has influenced in the most remark- 
able manner the opinions and fortunes of the human 
species is Jesus Christ. At this day, His name is 
connected with the devotional feelings of two hun- 
dred million of the human race. The institutions 
of the most civilized portions:of the globe derive 
their authority from the sanction of His doctrines.” 


Percy Byssuzt SHELLEY. 


CHAPTER XIII 
THERE IS A TRUE RELIGION 


EK should use all the reason God has given 

us to find out if Christ is God. If He 

: is not God, Christianity is false; if He 

is God, Christianity is true because its Founder is 
divine. Our reasoning has made us conclude that 
Christ is God. This being so, His religion is true. 
There is, therefore, in the world a true and divine 
religion. We know this because Christ established 
a Church and declared that it should last until the 
end of the world: “And I say to thee, That thou are 
Peter, and upon this rock (thee) I will build my 
Oech). «(Matthew xvi, i118)... “As. the 
Father hath sent me, I also send you.” (John 
xx, 21). ‘Going therefore teach ye all nations: 
. Teaching them to observe all things what- 
soever I have commanded you: and behold I am with 
you all days, even to the consummaton of the world.” 
(Matthew xxviii, 19-20). Christ came not merely 
for the people of His day, but for all nations to the 
end of time. But how was He to reach them and 


minister unto them? By the Church which He estab- 
41 


42 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


lished, that Church which is in the world to-day and 
always will be, and being His, is true. 


Non-Catuoric TESTIMONY 


“Like every other part of our nature, our religious 
nature is made for truth, not for falsehood; and only 
truth can healthily minister to it. Just as my physi- 
cal nature can be made healthy and strong only by 
things really adapted to it, and not by things I may 
ignorantly think so; just as appetite can be satisfied 
only by wholesome food, and disease cured only by 
fitting medicine,—so my soul can be made healthy 
and strong only by true religious ideas. . . . Hence 
perverted religious feelings, the moral corruption, 
the social selfishness and cruelty, that we see where 
Paganism, Mohammedanism, or corrupt Christianity 
prevails. The religious and moral contrast of na- 
tions as they now exist upon the face of the earth 
is indeed a sufficient vindication of Christianity. 
. . . itis, therefore, neither ignorance nor arrogance 
that affirms the falsehood of other religious systems, 
and the truth of Christianity. It is the conclusion 
of enlightened reason; else reason itself were an 
absurdity.” 


Henry Axton, D.D., Fatth and Free Thought, 
pp. 260, 2638 . 


CHAPTER XIV 
THERE IS BUT ONE TRUE RELIGION 


HRIST established a divine religion which 
was to last as long as the world. Therefore 
this religion exists now, it is in the world 

to-day. It is that Church founded by Christ and of 

which He said: “He that heareth you, heareth me: 
. .” (Luke x, 16). The best definition of the 

Church is to state that it is the continuation of 

Christ’s ministry among mankind. Christ said He 

would be with His Church always and He cannot 

be with error. Hence His Church cannot err. We 
are not saying which is the true church,—that will 
come later. We now state that whichever Church 
in the world is Christ’s, that is the only true Church. 
Every religion that exists either agrees with Christ’s 
or it does not. If it agrees with His, it is the same 
as His and is true; if it disagrees with His, it is 
different from His and is not true. Yes and no can- 
not be the same. If Christ’s religion is true, every 
religion which differs from it is false. Hence there 


is but one true religion in the world. 
43 





aoe CHRIST OR CHAOS 


Non-Catuortic TEstrimMony 


“Natural religion rests upon strong and solid argu- 
ments, but even its most ardent friends do not ven- 
ture to maintain that it has ever yet on its own merits 
established itself «as the creed of any nation. A 
philosopher here and there, a Socrates, an Aristotle, 
or a Cicero, has perceived its truth, but not one of 
them succeeded in making its cult popular. The at- 
tempt of the English and French Deists in the 
eighteenth century to establish a religion of Nature 
proved a complete failure. The modern Unitarians 
have set themselves the same task, but so far as we 
can see, without any real prospect of success. Uni- 
tarianism, however the fact may be explained, does 
not commend itself to religiously minded men. It 
seems to be an unstable halting-place for those who 
are making a journey from Faith to Agnosticism, 
or from Agnosticism to Faith. Its tone is not de- 
votional. It inspires no enthusiasm, sends out few 
missionaries, and seems likely to be crushed out of 
existence between the two real competitors for the 
allegiance of the modern world, Christianity and 
Unbelief. ... 

“Christianity has superseded all other religions 
and philosophies among the most advanced races, 
and, in spite of severe criticism, still maintains its 
position. . . . The teaching of Christ is upon one 
level of excellence, and does not, like other religions 


THERE IS BUT ONE TRUE RELIGION 45. 


and philosophies, mingle truth with error, piety with 
superstition, and lofty morality with puerilities and 
ineptitudes. . . . Christ, whose character, as de- 
lineated in the Gospels, is as beautiful as His teach- 
ing, claims to be a teacher sent from God, and it is 
impossible to disbelieve Him.” 


CuarLes Harris, D.D., Pro Fide, pp. 276, 358. 


CHAPTER XV 
THE TRUE RELIGION 


E have seen that there is one true religion 

in the world, the religion of Jesus 

Christ. All Christians agree on this 

point. But many religions claim to be Christ’s. 

Which is truly His? It is the religion in the world 

to-day which goes right back to the Founder of the 

Christian Religion, and which teaches the same 

truths which He taught. Christ guaranteed that 

His Church should exist always and never teach 
error. 

His Church received from Him His true doctrine, 
—one that needs neither change nor revision. Com- 
ing from Him it is Truth, and Truth never changes. 
Religions which revise their teaching are human not 
divine. The religion which is Christ’s is that one 
whose teaching has never changed. Members of His 
Church, even some of its teachers, may be unworthy 
and sinful; among the Twelve Apostles there were 
those who fell lamentably. Christ did not guarantee 
that His Church would be impeccable in its members, 
but infallible in its teaching. He even foretold 


scandal among His followers. 
46 


THE TRUE RELIGION 47 


He instituted the sacrament of forgiveness in His 
Church for sinners. But He solemnly declared His 
Church would never teach what was false. There is, 
therefore, a Church existing now which goes back 
directly to Jesus Christ. There is a Church in the 
world to-day which cannot err. The only Church 
which goes back direct to Christ is the Catholic 
Church ; the only Church which claims that it cannot 
err is the Catholic Church.* The other churches do 
not even pretend that they cannot err. They admit 
that they may err. Imagine Christ or His Church 
subject to error! 


Non-CatHouic TESTIMONY 


“As there was one faith in all Christendom, so 
there was theoretically at least, one chief ruler in 
spiritual matters, and though the Greek Church re 
fused to acknowledge him (the pope), his authority 
in the West was absolutely undisputed till the days 
of Luther in Germany and Henry VIII in England.” 


James Garrpner, Lollardy and the Reforma- 
tion, I, 509. 


“From the fifth to the thirteenth century, the 
Church was engaged in elaborating the most splendid 
organization the world has ever seen. Starting with 
the separation of the spiritual from the temporal 

* See God and Myself, by Martin J. Scott, S.J. 


48 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


power, and the mutual independence of each in its 
own sphere, Catholicism worked hand in hand with 
feudalism for the amelioration of mankind... . 
During this period, the Church was the one mighty 
witness for light in an age of darkness, for order 
in an age of lawlessness, for personal holiness in an 
epoch of licentious rage. Amid the despotism of 
kings, and the turbulence of aristocracies, it was an 
inestimable blessing that there should be a power 
which by the unarmed majesty of goodness made the 
haughtiest and the boldest respect the interests of 
justice and tremble at the temperance, righteousness 
and judgment to come.” 


Canon Farrar, The Victories of Christramty, 
p. 115. 


“The Catholic faith, if we concede its first axiom, 
which neither the Lutherans, nor the Reformed, nor 
even the followers of Socinus denied, is as consistent 
and as consecutive as the books of Euclid. The entire 
Romish religion is founded on the fact of a super- 
natural revelation designed for the whole human 
race, which, as it embraces all generations, future 
as well as present, can never be interrupted; other- — 
wise the sublime work accomplished by a God-Man 
and sealed by His blood would be exposed, which 
is contrary to the hypothesis, to suffer and eventually 
to perish by the weakness and errors of men. These 
consequences of the first principles are indisputable; 


THE TRUE RELIGION 49 


and there is not a single article of Catholic Belief 
which is not justifiable by the closest deduction from 
this principle.” 
Grrorer, Critical History of Primitiwe Chris- 
tianity, Bk. I, p. 15. 


“Which is the Holy Catholic Church, and is the 
Church of England, so called, an essential part of it ? 
Some may think this an unnecessary question to ask. 
But we must not forget that we have been for cen- 
turies, and still are regarded by one of the oldest 
and largest branches of the Christian Society as 
outside the pale of the Catholic Church, as 
‘Protestants, and ‘Heretics,’ and, as such, objects 
of conversion. There is no doubt whatever about 
this. Toa member of the Roman Church, a Catholic 
means a Christian who acknowledges the infallibility 
of the Pope of Rome. England, he considers, is 
heretical and non-Catholic; so also are Greece and 
Russia. Some years ago the question of the validity 
of English Orders was brought up in the Vatican, 
and the Pope shed many tears at having to decide 
against them. . . . What, then, are the grounds for 
this belief? One is the historical theory that the 
Church of England cut herself off from the rest of 
the Church at the time of the Reformation. . . 
Ninety-nine out of a hundred Englishmen at the 
present day have a vague belief that the Church 
of England became ‘Protestant,’ that is, non-Catholic,, 


50 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


somewhere about the time of Queen Elizabeth, and 
that before that it was what they call ‘Roman Catho- 
lic.’ . . . What then, should be our attitude to 
Rome? This is an extremely difficult question ... 
and the trouble is not that we can recognize her, but 
that she can’t recognize us.” 


Lucknow Diocesan Chronicle, Sept. 1917. 


CHAPTER XVI 
THE PURPOSE OF RELIGION 


OD became man in order that mankind 
might become partakers of the divine na- 
ture. Life is probation; this world is not 

the goal, but the starting-point of man. Life does 
not give felicity, but leads to it. The purpose of 
religion is to enable us to live right. Some people 
judge religion by its worldly advantages, but neither 
wealth nor honor nor pleasure is the object of life. 
Christ had none of these. 

God did not become man to give us worldly pros- 
perity; He did not leave heaven and come among us 
to give us wealth, honor, a long life, or anything 
which human effort can achieve. He came to give us 
something divine: “But as many as received him, he 
gave them power to be made the sons of God, . . .” 
(John i, 12). | 

The Apostles and martyrs had no worldly stand- 
ing, but they won eternal life with God. Our destiny 
is to become members of the divine family with God 
as our Father and Christ as our Brother. For this 


reason Christ said: . . . “what doth it profit a man, 
51 


52 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his 
own soul?” (Matt. xvi, 26). 

Most religions work mainly for worldly well-being, 
but Christ’s religion makes everything secondary to 
eternal salvation. He who saves his soul has more 
than the whole world can give. 


Non-Catuortic TESTIMONY 


“When a religious society has ever been formed, 
when a certain number of men are united by a com- 
mon religious creed, are governed by the same re- 
ligious precepts, and enjoy the same religious hopes, 
some form of government is necessary. No society 
can endure a week, nay more, no society can endure 
a single hour, without a government. The moment, 
indeed, a society is formed, by the very fact of its 
formation it calls forth a government, a government 
which shall proclaim the common truth which is the 
bond of society, and promulgate and maintain the 
precepts that this truth ought to produce. The 
necessity of a superior power, of a form of govern- 
ment, is involved in the fact of a religious as in that 
of any other society.” 

Francois Guizot, Histoire de la Civilisation en 
Europe depuis le Quinziéme Siecle jusqu’ a 
la Révolution Frangaise, Lect. v, p. 131. 


“The Catholic Church was founded by the 
Apostles, with promise that the gates of hell should 


THE PURPOSE OF RELIGION 53 


not prevail against it. It has continued on till now, 
with an honourable and certain line of near two 
hundred and seventy Popes, successors of St. Peter, 
—both tyrants, traitors, pagans and heretics in vain 
wresting, raging and undermining it. All the gen- 
eral councils that ever were in the world have ap- 
proved and honoured it. God hath miraculously 
blessed it from above, so many learned Doctors have 
enriched it with their writings, armies of saints have 
embellished it with their holiness, martyrs with their 
blood, virgins with their purity. Even at this day, 
amid the difficulties of unjust rebellions and the un- 
‘ natural revolts of her newest children, she yet 
stretches out her arms to the utmost corners of the 
world, newly embracing whole nations into her bosom. 
. . . Inthe Catholic Church there is undivided unity, 
resolutions unalterable, the most heavenly order, 
reaching from the highest of all power to the lowest 
of all subjection; all with admirable harmony, and 
undefective correspondence, bending the same way 
to the effecting of the same purpose.” 


Siz Epwin Sanpy in the Relation of the 
Western Relegion. 


CHAPTER XVII 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 


LL admit that the Catholic Church goes 
directly back to Jesus Christ. It is pro- 
claimed in The Apostles’ Creed: “. .. I 
believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, 
the Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sing, 
the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.” 
Why, then, do not all Christians belong to the 
Catholic Church? Because some Christians sepa- 
rated from the Catholic Church and formed new 
churches, asserting that the old Church had fallen 
into error, even though the Catholic Church was 
guaranteed against error by Jesus Christ Himself. 
If the Catholic Church ever taught error, Christ’s 
promise was false, and He was, therefore, an im- 
poster, and Christianity is false. Hence, either the 
Catholic Church is true, or all Christianity rests on 
a basis of falsehood, blasphemy and sacrilege. 
This is plain speaking, and may seem arrogant to 
some but it is absolutely logical. It is impossible, 
logically, to hold that Christ is God and that His 


solemn word should fail. God’s word cannot fail. 
54 


THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 55 


If, therefore, Christ is God, the Catholic Church, 
which is the only one that goes back to Him, is His 
Church. 

There may have been scandals among its members 
but, as before mentioned, He actually foretold them. 
The Church is made up of men not angels. The 
Truth does not force one to be good, but points out 
the way and gives help. Judas went wrong in the 
company of Christ who was the Way, the Truth and 
the Life. That did not detract from Christ. 

So to-day the Catholic Church, the Light of the 
World shines for all, though all may not walk in 
its light. However, the Light is not at fault, but 
rather they who close their eyes to it, and refuse to 
guide their steps by it. It follows, therefore, logic- 
ally, that all Christianity is false, unless the Catholic 
Church zs the Church of Christ. 


Non-Catuoric TEstTimony 


“The seceders, to cover their own deed, stoutly 
maintained that the doctrine of the Church united 
with the chief See had been corrupted by many 
heresies and by idolatry. This was the occasion of 
my inquiring into the dogmas of that church, of read- 
ing the books written on both sides... . I went 
further, and chose to read the chief writers of ancient 
times, as well Greek as Latin, among whom are 


56 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


Gauls and Africans; and those of the next three cen- 
turies. I read both, all and often, but the later 
ones as much as my occupations and circumstances 
allowed, especially Chrysostom and Jerome, because 
I saw that they were considered happier than the 
rest in the exposition of Holy Scriptures. Applying 
to these writers the rules of Vincentius of Lerins, 
which I saw to be approved by the most learned, I 
deduced which were the points which had been every- 
where, always and perseveringly handed down by 
the testimony of the ancients, and by the traces of 
them remaining to the present day. I saw that these 
remained in that Church which is bound to Rome.” 


Hvueo Grotius, Votum pro Pace, ITI, p. 653. 


“The fact that there was a painful mass of moral 
evil within the Church before the reformation does 
not necessarily lead to the conclusion that the refor- 
mation in England,—or indeed anywhere else,—was 
due to moral indignation on that account. There is 
absolutely no appearance that this was the case. Not 
even Luther had any idea of revolting against the 
papal system for seven years after he had been 
shocked at what he saw of the moral condition of 
Rome itself, nor would he have done so at all, but 
that he was disappointed in his expectation of fair 
treatment in his controversy with Tetzel. As to the 
reformation in England, it was due really to the 


THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 57 
King’s action against the Pope by which papal juris- 


diction was entirely abrogated.” 


James GarrpnEeR, Lollardy and the Reforma- 
tion, Bk. LIT, xxxix. 


“Royal supremacy is in truth a rather ambiguous 
doctrine, which has been disliked by pious minds 
down to the present day, and even if we acknowledge 
that it contained within it a hidden seed of good 
to be matured in after ages, we cannot pretend that 
its enforcement at the outset was anything but a 
wilful destruction of the best existing guarantees 
for public morality.” 


JameEs GarirpneR, Lollardy and the Reforma- 
tron, I, 506. 


“We, Protestants as we are, when we take in at 
one view this wondrous edifice (the Catholic 
Church), from its base to its summit, must acknowl- 
edge that we have never beheld a system which, the 
foundation once laid, is raised upon such certain and 
secure principles; whose structure displays, in its 
minutest details, so much art, penetration and con- 
sistency; and whose plan is so proof against the 
severest criticism of the most profound science.” 


Marueineke, “Symbolik,” 1810, 


“My faith in Protestantism is so shaken that I am 
compelled in conscience to lay aside for the present 


58 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


my functions. . . . I know the grief that what I am 
going to tell you will create, but I know, too, you 
will respect the integrity and the frankness of the 
course I adopt. The attacks from every quarter upon 
the Roman Catholic Church have forced me into a 
laborious study of the controversy, and I confess my 
faith is shaken in the Protestant religion. I have 
resigned my parish, my kind, my generous parish, 
and have laid aside the active functions of my pro- 
fession, to weigh deliberately and devoutly my future. 
I know how great a sacrifice I make, of feeling as 
well as interest. . . . It is not only giving up the 
honours and emoluments of my profession and my 
standing, but it is to be attended with the rage and 
malignity, the abuse and the calumny of the pious 
public, and the alienation of kindred and friends, 
which to a great extent are sure to follow. . . . Do 
not suppose, dear Bishop, my present feelings are due 
to any momentary impulse; they are the result of 
anxious study, they have given me many sleepless 
nights and brought me low in health; and do not 
think I have been led to them by any novel or exterior 
influence; I have read not one of the recent publica- 
tions for the Roman Catholics, and certainly nearly 
all against them; I have had no communication on 
the subject with any clergyman or layman of their 
Church, nor have I consulted on the steps I now take 
with any human being whatever. It is from a most 
ex parte Protestant examination of the subject that 


THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 59 


I have come to the doubts and conclusions which I 
now send you; the subject, moreover, was forced 
upon me solely by my own church, and her vociferous 
errors in England and at home.” 


Rev. Pearce ConnEtzy in a statement to his 
Bishop, Dr. Otey. 


CHAPTER XVIII 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 
AS Jesus Christ God? Yes or no? If 


He was not, all the Christian denomina- 

tions are false. Because all Christianity 
rests on Christ, who, if He be not God, in swearing 
that He was, thus committed perjury. Consequently, 
if Christ be not God, Christianity rests on falsehood. 
In solemnly swearing that He was God, He meant 
true God, the same as Jehovah, otherwise the Jews 
would not have accused Him of blasphemy, and put 
Him to death on that charge. 

If He was God, He is divine Truth, and all that 
He says and promises is true. Did He establish a 
visible Church? Yes or no? If He did not, there 
is no use looking for it. If He did, then it is some- 
where in the world to-day, for He declared it was to. 
last always. 

Christ commanded His Church to teach and to 
administer sacraments. The administration of sacra- 
ments requires a visible organization. Some say that 
the Church of Christ is a spiritual kingdom existing 
in the hearts of men and that it is this spiritual 

60 


THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 61 


creation which He promised to be with and which 
was to last forever. It is true that His Church is 
a spiritual kingdom inasmuch as its realm is the souls 
of men and its means of helping them are spiritual. 

But it is by a visible agency that all this is done. 
It was a visible Church which gave us the Bible. 
Before the Bible was compiled, the Church was in 
full organization. The sacraments are visible signs 
of invisible grace conferred. The administration of 
the sacraments, the ordination of ministers and the 
preaching of the Word all require visible administra- 
tion. This necessitates organization and authority 
which constitutes a visible Church. 

Christ’s truth is not in the air. It is a sacred 
deposit left by Him to His Church, which in turn, 
by His command, delivers it unaltered to generation: 
after generation and will do so to the end of time. 

What visible Church, therefore, goes back to Peter 
and Jesus Christ? There is but one, the Catholic 
Church, whose head is the Pope, the successor of 
Peter, and the representative of Christ. No other 
visible church dates its present organization from 
Apostolic times. The world opposed and persecuted 
Christ; we should not be surprised that it opposes 
the Catholic Church. 


Non-Catuortic TErstrmMony 


“The immediate effect of the abolition of papal 
jurisdiction in England was not a reformation at 


62 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


all; it was grosser demoralization than before. The 
reformation, in fact, if we date it from the with- 
drawal of obedience to Rome, was really in the main 
an immoral movement, stimulated by abuses to which 
Rome itself had been a great deal too indulgent.” 


JaMES GartrpNER, Lollardy and the Reforma- 
tion, I, 380. 


“We have seen that the Catholic Church was not, 
and is not, an affair of mere abstract faith; that it 
was not so very spiritual a concern as to scorn all 
cares relative to the bodies of the people, that one 
part, and that a principal part, of its business was to 
cause works of charity to be performed, that this 
charity was not of so very spiritual a nature as not to 
be at all tangible or obvious to the vulgar sense; that 
it showed itself in good works done to the needy and 
suffering; that the tithes and offerings and income 
from real property of the Catholic Church went in 
great part to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, 
to lodge and feed the stranger, to sustain the widow 
and the orphan, and to heal the wounded and the 
sick; and that, in short, a great part, and indeed, one 
of the chief parts of the business of this Church was 
to take care that no person, however low in life, 
should suffer from want, either of sustenance or care; 
and that the priests of this Church should have as 
few selfish cares as possible to withdraw them from 
this important part of their duty, they were forbidden 


THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 63 


to marry. Thus as long as this Church was the 
national Church, there were hospitality and charity 
in the land, and the horrid word ‘pauper’ had never 
been so much as thought of.” 


Witi1amM Cossett, History of the Protestant 
Reformation, p. 269. 


“The Christian Community under him (the Pope) 
is organized like an army, of which each order is in 
strict subjection to every order that is above it. A 
thousand Bishops are its generals; some two hundred 
thousand clergy are its subordinate officers; the laity 
are the proletarians. The auxiliary forces of this 
great military establishment are the monastic orders. 
And they differ from the auxiliaries of other armies 
in that they have a yet stricter discipline, and a more 
complete dependence on the head, than ordinary 
soldiery. To the charm of an unbroken continuity, 
to the majesty of an immense mass, to the energy of 
a closely serried organization, the system now called 
Papalism or Vaticanism adds another and more 
legitimate source of strength. It undeniably con- 
tains within itself a large portion of the individual 
religious life of Christendom. The faith, the hope, 
the charity, which it was the office of the Gospel to 
engender, flourish within this precinct in the hearts 
of millions upon millions, who feel little, and know 
less, of its extreme claims, and of their constantly 
progressive development. Many beautiful and noble 


64 CHRIST ‘OR CHAOS 


characters grow up within it. Moreover, the babes 
and sucklings of the Gospel, the poor, the weak, the 
uninstructed, the simple souls who in tranquil 
spheres give their heart and will to God, and whose 
shaded path is not scorched by the burning questions 
of human thought and life, these persons, probably 
in the Roman Church, are by no means worse than 
they would be under other Christian systems. They 
swell the mass of the main body; obey the word of 
command when it reaches them; and they help to 
supply the sources by which a vast machinery is kept 
in motion.” 

Ricut Hon. W. E. Grapstons, M. P., Course 

of eligious Thoughts. 


XTX 
OTHER CHRISTIAN SECTS 


Christians Catholics? For the same reason 

that although Christ was divine, all did not 
become Christians. Christ was opposed to the pride 
and selfishness of the world, and hence did not flatter 
the pride or ambition of the Jews. They looked for 
a great worldly kingdom, and He came to give them 
something far better, a heavenly kingdom; they 
looked for present advantage, and because He did 
not give it, they rejected Him. They accused Him of 
blasphemy because He declared He spoke the truth 
in saying He was God. 

The founders of the various denominations falsely 
accused the Catholic Church and set up their own 
religion. As Christ was falsely accused and misrep- 
resented by those whose interest it was to reject Him, 
so was His Church at the time of the so-called Refor- 
mation. Since then there has been a constant stream 
of misrepresentation from poisoned sources with the 
result that many are prejudiced against the Catholic 
Religion. They accept as truth statements purposely 


falsified by enemies of the Church. 
65 


|. the Catholic Church is divine, why are not all 


66 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


If the reformers were right, Christ was wrong, 
for He said His Church would always teach the 
truth. Abuses there have been, undoubtedly, be- 
cause men are men. But error absolutely did not 
exist and never will exist in Christ’s Church. 


Non-Catuozric TEstrmMony 


“Whatever may be said of the private morals of 
individual popes, it must be considered that they 
wielded judicial functions and passed sentence when 
required, as to what was right or wrong in faith or 
practice. Nor does it appear that they and the Sacred 
College, by whose advice they were guided, ever 
came to corrupt decisions, or judgments which were 
otherwise than just and impartial, on the cases laid 
before them.” 


Jamsus GarrpNeR, Lollardy and the Reformar 
tion, Bk. 1,292. 


“The German poet Goethe says of Luther, that he 
threw back the intellectual progress of mankind for 
centuries by calling in the passions of the multitude 
to decide on subjects which ought to have been left 


to the learned.” 
Frovupr, Short Studies, p. 44. 


“Instead of one pope, the Protestants were op- 
pressed by a number, each of the princes ascribing 
that authority to himself.... The Protestant 


OTHER CHRISTIAN SECTS 67 


princes, rendered by the Treaty of Augsburg un- 
limited dictators in matters of faith within their 
territories, had lost all sense of shame. Philip of 
Hesse married two wives (as all the world knows, 
authorized by Luther). Brandenburg and pious 
Saxony yielded to temptation. Surrounded by coarse 
grooms, equerries, court fools of obscene wit, mis- 
shapen dwarfs, the princes emulated each other in 
drunkenness, an amusement that entirely replaced 
the gallant tournaments of earlier times. Almost 
every German court was addicted to this bestial 


vice.” 


Menzzt, History of Germany, XI, p. 288. 


“There is a steady decay in the various Protestant 
congregations. T’he rich, as a class, and the people 
of the abyss, so far as they move towards any exist- 
ing religious body, will be attracted by the moral 
kindliness and picturesque organization and vener- 
able tradition of the Catholic Church. We are only 
in the beginning of a great Catholic revival. The 
country side of the coming time will show many a 
splendid cathedral, many an elaborated monastic 
palace towering amidst the abounding colleges and 
technical schools. Along the moving platforms of the 
urban center—amidst the shining advertisements that 
will adorn them—will go the ceremonial procession, 
all glorious with banners and censer-bearers. Count- 
less ecstatic nuns will find shelter from the world 


68 CHRIST.OR CHAOS 


in simple refuges of refined austerity. When miracles 
are needed, miracles will occur. Except for a few 
queer people, nourished on Maria Monk and such like 
anti-Papal pornography, I doubt if there will be any 
Protestants among the rich.” 


H. G. Wetts in Anticipations. 


“The whole trouble is the Protestant practice of 
organizing churches on a theological basis. The fight 
between the Fundamentalist and the Modernist has 
been going on ever since Protestantism began and 
the result is the 150 and more denominations, which 
makes the devil laugh. And all because the Prot- 
estant has the extraordinary idea that theology has 
something basic to do with religion and with salva- 
tion. As a matter of fact, religion may be a good 
many things, but one thing it is not, and that is be- 
lief or disbelief in the Virgin Birth, the infallibility 
of the Bible, the creation, or any other dogma. 

“Especially does theology or theological belief 
have no place in the church as such. No church can 
fulfil its functions or be faithful to religion, unless 
it can be said of it with utter truth that it has no 
belief at all.” 


Dz. Joun Haynes Hotmess’ Sermon, The War 
an the Churches, “New York Times,” Jan. 
28, 1924. 


XxX 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND ABUSES 


HRIST guaranteed His Church against 
error, not against scandal. Indeed, as be- 
fore stated, He foretold scandal, even in 

high places. In the church of the Old Testament, 
there were abuses and corruption; Saul, the anointed 
of the Lord, was false to his trust; David, God’s 
inspired Psalmist, fell lamentably; not a few of the 
Patriarchs and Prophets were a scandal to the peo- 
ple. In the New Testament, some of the Apostles, 
with Christ in their midst, sinned grievously. The 
Church in Apostolic times needed purifying. The 
Church is composed of men, not angels. The sacra- 
ment of forgiveness was instituted by Christ Him- 
self for the reformation of His followers. In the 
Lord’s Prayer, He bids us ask forgiveness for our 
transgressions. Priests, Bishops, Popes are human 
and frail like the rest of us. Judas fell and Peter 
fell. There has been scandal always in the Church. 
Christ is the Light of the world. A Beacon guides, it 
does not compel. Religion does not force one to be 


good, but directs and helps. The divinity of the 
69 


70 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


Catholic Church is manifest by its preservation and 
vigor in spite of the frailty of some of its members. 
If it were not divine it had perished long ago. Christ 
did not guarantee its members freedom from sin, 
but He did guarantee His Church freedom from 
error, and perpetuity. 


Non-Catruoitic TESTIMONY 


“The theory that Protestantism was more tolerant 
than Romanism will not bear investigation.” 


JaMES GartrpNER, Lollardy and the Reforma- 
tion, Bk. III, xxiv. 


“The Spanish Inquisition is one of those subjects 
regarding which Protestant Christendom is largely 
in error. There is perhaps no historical question 
more deeply overlaid with prejudice, fallacy, one 
may even say, superstition; none as to which popu- 
lar conceptions are further removed from the facts 
as scholars know them. But why, one immediately 
inquires,—why this widespread and long-standing 
delusion? ... 

“‘At the time when Protestantism was fighting for 
its life, it found no more effective rallying cry for its 
forces than—The Spanish Inquisition! Of this, ac 
cordingly, it made the most, lavishing upon the 
Catholic tribunal all that wealth of lurid invective 
for which the early reformers are so justly f 


THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND ABUSES 71 


No exaggeration was too wild, no calumny too black 
for the purpose of these enthusiasts; and they suc 
ceeded in coloring not only the thought of their own 
time, but the thought of Protestant countries from 
that day to this, concerning the object of their 
attacks)... 

“Nearly all modern Protestant chronicles of the 
Inquisition are poisoned at the source, being chiefly 
drawn from a work now regarded by scholars, Prot- 
estant and Catholic alike, as utterly untrustworthy. 
The author of this work, one Llorente, a Spaniard, 
was a functionary of the Inquisition. Being: dis- 
charged for misconduct, he proceeded to write a 
‘history’ of the tribunal, calumniating it in every 
possible way; first, having destroyed records which 
might have disproved his assertions, and to which 
he alone had access. In the absence of these records, 
it was for a long time impossible absolutely to con- 
fute him; but within the last half century facts have 
come to light which directly give the lie to a great 
number of his statements, and so discredit all the 
rest; his character, too, is shown to have been such 
that it alone should bar him from the witness-stand ; 
and, moreover, the investigations of historians are 
tending more and more strongly every decade to put 
his testimony out of court on collateral grounds.” 


Exiza Atkins Stonst, A Brief for the Spanish 
Inquisition, pp. 4-6. 


72 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


“The Inquisition was an engine for stifling sedi- 
tion as well as heresy. Hence it was defended by 
the Spanish sovereign against objections and com- 
plaints of the pope.” 


Gzorce P. Fisuer, The Reformation, Chap. 
XI, p. 404. 


“When one looks at these deeds, when one sees 
what abject slavery Elizabeth had reduced the nation 
to, and especially when one views this commission, 
it is impossible for us not to reflect with shame on 
what we have so long been saying against the Span- 
ish Inquisition, which from its first establishment, 
has not committed so much cruelty as this first Prot- 
estant Queen committed in any one single year of 
the forty-three years of her reign. And observe 
again and never forget, that Catholics, where they 
inflicted punishments, inflicted them on the ground 
that the offenders had departed from the faith in 
which they had been bred, and which they had pro- 
fessed; whereas the Protestant punishments have 
been inflicted on men because they refused to depart 
from the faith in which they had been bred, and 
which they had professed all their lives. And in the 
particular case of this brutal hypocrite, they were 
punished, and that, too, in the most barbarous man- 
ner, for adhering to that very religion which she had 
openly professed for many years of her life, and to 


THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND ABUSES 73 


which she, even at her coronation, had sworn that 
she belonged.” 


Wixtt1am Consett, History of the Protestant 
Reformation, pp. 279-280. 


“Verily, I must acknowledge, much trouble cometh 
of my teaching! Yea, I cannot deny that this matter 
often makes me sorrowful when my conscience espe- 
cially chideth me in that I have torn asunder the 
former state of the Church, which was tranquil and 
peaceful under the Papacy, and I have excited much 
trouble, discord, and faction by my teaching.” 


Lutuer’s Works, Vol. I, p. 281. 


“But with all its mistakes, errors, crimes (if you 
will) that it is answerable for, since its institution, 
through the sins of unworthy servants, Catholicism 
is the only creed with the true seed of spiritual life 
within it—the only creed left standing on a firm 
foundation in this shaking world.” 


Marie Corexui, The Secret Power, p. 182. 


XXI 


THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE 
REFORMATION 


in Christendom. Up to that time nearly all 
Christian bodies recognized the Catholic Church 

as the one true Church of Christ. It was the only 
church in the world which went straight back to 
Christ in direct line; consequently it was the 
only church during sixteen centuries which was 
Christ’s Church. Christ had proclaimed that His 
Church was to last always and that it was to teach 
the truth. The so-called reformers claimed that the 
Church had taught error instead of truth. We must 
choose between Christ and the reformers. He said 
His Church would never err; they said it had erred. 
It is a question, therefore, whether or not Christ’s 
guarantee was effective. If it was not effective, He 
was not God, for God necessarily fulfils His word. 
Those who reject every form of Christianity because 
they do not believe in Christ’s divinity, are at least 
consistent. But those who believe in His divinity 


and yet admit that His Church divinely guaranteed 
74 


| N the sixteenth century a great division occurred 


THE CHURCH AND THE REFORMATION 7%5 


against error fell into error are neither logical nor 
consistent. As true as Christ is God His guarantee 
holds. By that guarantee His Church never has and 
never will teach error. 

To repeat, abuses there undoubtedly were in the 
Church, as there were in Apostolic times,* but error 
never. Christ foresaw abuses in His Church when 
He said: “All things therefore whatsoever they shall 
say to you, observe and do; but according to their 
works do ye not: . . .” (Matt. xxui, 3). 

The Church may have needed reform of conduct; 
the reformers, however, sought to destroy her. But 
she will live forever for God has so declared. 


Non-Catuoric TESTIMONY 


“In nearly every country where their boasted 
Reformation triumphed, the result is to be mainly 
attributed to coercion.” 

Lecxy, History of the Rise and Influence of 
the Spirit of Rationalism mm Hurope, LU, p. 49. 


“The Reformation, as it is called, was engendered 
in beastly lust, brought forth mm hypocrisy and 
perfidy, and cherished and fed by plunder, devasta- 
tion and rivers of innocent English and Irish blood.” 

Witit1amM Consett, History of the Protestant 
Reformation, pp. 2-3. 
*See The Hand of God, by Martin J. Scott, S.J. 


76 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


“Tt is not to be denied that the origin of the (Eng- 
lish) Establishment is mixed up with plunder, job- 
bery and intrigue, and stands out even in the 
tortuous annals of the sixteenth century; that the 
annals run black and red, along some of the blackest 
and reddest pages of royal tryanny and government 
corruption.” 

Freperick Harrison, in “Contemporary Re- 
view,’ X XXIII, p. 582. 


“The Reformation getting the upper hand among 
a portion of the German people was due first and 
foremost to the princes, who aimed at creating terri 
torial churches for themselves, and being masters in 
their own houses.” 


Apotr Harnack, in “Contemporary Review,” 
1904, p. 859. 


“‘A king whose character may be best described by 
saying that he was despotism itself personified; un- 
principled ministers; a rapacious aristocracy; a 
servile parliament. Such were the instruments by 
which England was delivered from the yoke of Rome. 
The work which had been begun by Henry, the mur- 
derer of his wives, was continued by Somerset, the 
murderer of his brother, and completed by Elizabeth, 
the murderer of her guest.” 

Macauuay’s Essays: Hallam’s Constitutional 
History, I, p. 199. 


THE CHURCH AND THE REFORMATION 77 


“T cannot on this occasion forbear recalling some- 
what of my earlier youth, in order to make it clear 
that the great affairs of religion as embodied in the 
Church must be carried on with order and close co- 
herence if they are to bring forward the expected 
fruit. The Protestant service has too little fulness 
and consistency to be able to hold the common people 
together, hence it often happens that members secede 
from it, and either form little communities of their 
own, or they quietly carry on their citizen life, side 
by side, without ecclesiastical connection. Thus for 
a long time complaints have been made that the 
churchgoers are diminishing from year to year, and 
in just the same ratio the persons who partake of 


the Lord’s Table.” 
Gortue’s Autobiography, p. 239. 


“T could never understand the use of parsons in 
the Protestant system. They are ordained, it is said, 
to preach and teach; but if the Bible is the sole rule, 
as Protestants assert, and every man is his own inter- 
preter, it is folly to set up any class of men to teach 
others: for when applied to for religious instruction, 
they can only hand a Bible to the applicant and tell 
him to pick for himself. They cannot even insure 
the inquirer that the book is the Word of God. They 
may firmly believe it so themselves, but they must 
leave the individual to find that also for himself. 
If they venture to propound to him any doctrine, 


78 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


or point his attention to their Catechism or Articles, 
they can only assure him that they themselves so 
believe; but they must own that, after all, they may 
be wrong, for neither they nor their Church claim 
infallible authority. So that, if the poor man who 
reverently looked up to them for pastoral teaching 
prefers thinking directly the reverse of what they 
tell him, he is at full liberty to do so, and may be in 
the right after all! And what is this but establish- 
ing every man as supreme judge at once of all con- 
troversies of faith? And then I return to my first 
inquiry: of what use are parsons in such a Church ? 
Well was it said, and much more consistently, not 
long ago in a leading public journal, ‘The Protestant 
is his own parson, and with the Bible in his pocket 
he moves about the world as he pleases.’ ” 


Siz Cuartes WALSLEY, Bart. 


XXIT 


THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND INFALLI- 
BILITY 


UTSIDE the Catholic Church there is much 
misunderstanding about infallibility. It 
simply means that when the Head of the 

Church hands down a decision in regard to Christ’s 
teaching, the decision is true. The Pope cannot teach 
a new truth, just as the Supreme Court cannot add 
to the Constitution. As the Supreme Court inter- 
prets the Constitution, when it is called in question, 
so does the Pope interpret the Constitution of the 
Church, namely Christ’s teaching, when it is called 
in question. 

The Head of the Catholic Church is Christ’s rep- 
resentative on earth. Would you expect His repre- 
sentative to misrepresent Him? ‘The opinion of an 
individual judge of the Supreme Court has no bind- 
ing authority except when it enters into an official 
decision of the Court. So with the Pope. He has 
Christ’s guarantee of infallibility only when sol- 
emnly proclaiming the meaning of Christ’s teaching. 
On all other matters he may err like the rest of us. 


A Church which is divine must necessarily be in- 
79 


89 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


fallible. A fallible Church is a fallible Christ. The 
Catholic Church alone claims infallibility. A divine 
religion must claim infallibility and be infallible, but 
a man-made religion dare not put forth this claim. 
We cannot associate fallibility with a divine teacher 
or religion. A fallible guide may lead one astray. 
God or His Church can mislead no one. 


Non-Catuortic TEstimony 


“If we would obtain a true view of Catholicism, 
we must begin by making a clean sweep of all the 
views that as outsiders we have been taught to enter- 
tain about her. We must, in the first place, learn 
to conceive her as a living, spiritual body, as in- 
fallible and as authoritative now as ever she was, 
with her eyes undimmed, and her strength not abated, 
continuing to grow still as she has continued to grow 
hitherto; and the growth of her new dogmas that she 
may from time to time enunciate, we must learn to 
see, are from her standpoint signs of life and not 
signs of corruption. And further, when we come 
to look into her more closely, we must separate care- 
fully the elements we find in her, her discipline, her 
pious opinions, her theology and her religion. Let 
her be fairly looked at in this way,—looked at not 
with any prepossession in her favor, but only without 
prejudice, and this much I am convinced of: I am 
convinced that if it be once admitted that we belong 
to a spiritual world, and in that world we are free 


THE CHURCH AND INFALLIBILITY 81 


and responsible agents, there will be no new diffi- 
culties encountered either by reason or the moral 
sense in admitting to the full the supernatural claims 
of Catholicism.” 


Witr1am Hourrett Mattrocg, in “Nineteenth 
Century,” 1878, p. 1034. 


“T am tired to death of uncertainty. I am sick 
of self-will. I am weary of standing alone. I am 
disgusted past bearing with that thing in the 
Anglican Communion which calls itself Catholicism. 
I must find a living, speaking, infallible authority 
to which to submit, or else I must disregard Chris- 
tianity as a miserable show. In Anglicanism I find 
no one note of the Church. It is not one, for it has 
almost as many teachings as teachers. It is not holy, 
for supernatural holiness it stigmatizes as supersti- 
tion and idolatry. Monks, virgins, hermits it scoffs 
at—scourges, hair-cloth, celibacy, vows, confessions, 
penances, vigils before the Sacrament, and almost 
all other means to preéminent holiness it disallows 
in no measured terms. I cannot see that the holi- 
ness it recommends goes very much beyond such a 
holiness as Cicero might have practised. Nor is 
Anglicanism Catholic. It is confined to men of one 
Church, and it will have nothing to do with the rest 
of Christendom. It hates the Roman obedience, and 
sends its emissaries wherever it can to stir up strife 
in that obedience, as we have missionaries, forsooth, 


82 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


in Mexico, in the West Indies, South America, in 
France; and even in Italy. . . . Lastly, Anglicanism 
is not apostolic. In England Parliament is supreme, 
and Churchmen literally worship God according to 
Parliament. Laymen say what is and what is not 
the Church’s doctrine, and now acquit and now con- 
demn priests. And in this country, too, not the 
Bishops, but the laity, rule. What the laity want 
they always get, and what they don’t want is never 
forced on them. They sit in all ecclesiastical bodies 
as coordinated with the Bishops themselves, and in 
almost all diocesan committees the Bishops are ruled 
out altogether, and are not even allowed to be co- 
ordinated with the laity. But it is useless, [ am sure, 
to prosecute further this indictment against Angli- 
canism. . . . Until I can be made to see what I now 
cannot see, namely, that Anglicanism has the notes 
of the Church, I must retain my purpose of looking 
elsewhere for that Church. I have determined to 
go abroad for a while and to make there my sub- 
mission to the Chair of St. Peter, if after consulting 
with some whom I have promised to consult my mind 
is still to the effect that Anglicanism is spurious and 
that the Roman obedience is alone entitled to my 
allegiance.” 

A. A. Curtis, D. D., Late Rector of Mt. Cal- 
vary, Protestant Episcopal Church, Balti- 
more, and afterwards papers Bishop of 
Wilmington. 


XXIIT 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND TRUTH 


N leaving this world Christ had to commit 
His teaching to somebody, otherwise it 
would have perished or become distorted. 
This is evident. 

A body of teaching is not something that may exist 
by itself and impart itself. Teaching must be em- 
bodied in books or tradition and books and tradition 
require careful guardianship to prevent error. 

Christ chose His divinely established Church to 
be custodian of His revelation. He owed it to Him- 
self to see to it that His custodian should safeguard 
His truth. Hence, the Catholic Church is the de- 
pository of God’s revealed truth. So much is this 
so that Christ said of His Church: “He that heareth 
you, heareth me.” . . . (Luke x, 16). Hence, the 
Catholic Church speaks with the authority of God; 
it is the only church which does so; and it is the only 
church which does not change its teaching with the 
changing world. Except in secondary matters, such as 


external reforms, customs and practices, which do not 
83 


84 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


affect the revealed truth, she never changes. Truth 
is always the same. Two and two always make four. 
it is only error that changes. Hence Catholic doc- 
trine never changes. Truth though fixed is not inert. 
Jt is the most dynamic thing on earth. Witness 
Christian civilization. 


Non-Catuoutic TESTIMONY 


“T freely admit the preéminence of Catholicism as 
an historical institution; here she is without a rival 
ora peer. If to be at once the most permanent, and 
extensive, the most plastic, and inflexible ecclesias- 
tical organization, were the same thing as the most 
perfect embodiment and vehicle of religion, then the 
claim of Catholicism were simply indisputable. The 
man in search of an authoritative Church may not 
hesitate; once let him assume that a visible and 
audible authority is of the essence of religion, and 
he has no choice; he must become, or get himself 
reckoned a Catholic. ... 

“The Protestant churches are but of yesterday, 
without the authority, the truth, or the ministries 
that can reconcile man to God; they are only a multi- 
tude of warring sects, whose confused voices but. pro- 
test their own insufficiency, whose impotence almost 
atones for their own sin of schism by the way it sets 
off the might, the majesty and the unity of Rome. 


THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND TRUTH 85 


In contrast, the Catholic Church stands where her 
Master placed her on the rock, endowed with the 
prerogatives and powers He gave to her, and ‘against 
her the gates of hell shall not prevail.’ ... 

“She is not like Protestanism, a concession to the 
negative spirit, an unholy compromise with nat- 
uralism. HEverything about her is positive and trans- 
cendant; she is the bearer of divine truth, the repre- 
sentative of divine order, the supernatural living in 
the very heart, and before the very face of the 
natural.” 


Pror. A. M. Farrsarrn, Catholicism, Roman 
and Anglican, pp. 152-154. 


XXIV 


THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 
COMPROMISE 


OME consider the Catholic Church arrogant 
and intolerant because she will make no con- 
cessions in matters of faith. In matters of 

faith Christ was the most intolerant person in the 
world. He was also accused of arrogance and 
blasphemy because He held that He was divine. He 
set Himself up against the whole Jewish hierarchy 
declaring that they were wrong and that He was 
the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He also set Him- 
self against the world at large because it was in 
error and filled with wilful wickedness. 

His Church, like Himself, can make no compro- 
mise in regard to the faith which He entrusted to 
her. Hither she has the truth or not. If she has it, 
she would be false to her trust to compromise it; if 
she has it not, Christ’s promise has failed, Chris- 
tianity 1s a deception, and the quicker we realize it 
the better. Christ was intolerant in matters of be 
lef, and so is His Church. 

Truth is intolerant of error. Mathematics are 


absolutely intolerant, they never compromise with 
86 


THE CHURCH AND COMPROMISE 87 


error. Christ and His Church must. be intolerant 
of error. Towards the erring individual, however, 
the Church like Christ is all consideration, if the 
erring one be sincere. One may be intolerant of 
Bolshevism, but tolerant of an individual adherent 
or victim of Bolshevism. 

Christ hated sin, but sought after the sinner; the 
Church opposes error, but does all in her power for 
the erring one. 


Non-Catuouic TErstrimony 


“Where are those who believe, as Luther taught 
it, the doctrine of imputed righteousness which he 
called ‘Justification by faith alone’? The doctrine 
is extinct. What person calling himself a follower 
of Luther would dream of advising a penitent to sin 
all the more in the name of Christ because ‘where sin 
abounded there did grace more abound’? Who to- 
day believes the doctrine of Calvin on Reprobation, 
etc.? Most of these doctrines are as extinct as the 
famous dodo. And, as for Puritanism, that mighty 
power which for a time overthrew both altar and 
throne and founded a religious tyranny in New Eng- 
land in these western lands, what remains of it to- 
day except a pale, emasculated, swiftly dying sab- 
batarianism ?” 


Dr. Perrotvat, in “Nineteenth Century,” 
XLVI, p. 516. 


88 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


“Mr. Emerson remarks in his Sovereignty of 
Ethics: ‘Luther would cut his hand off sooner than 
write theses against the Pope if he suspected he was 
bringing on with all his might the pale negations of 
Boston Unitarianism.’ In the same spirit and with 
the same limitations with which Mr. Emerson’s re- 
mark is to be understood by discriminating readers, 
I say that our Puritan fathers never would have made 
the break they did with Catholic Christianity could 
they have foreseen as the result thereof the Christ- 
less, moribund, frigid, fruitless Protestantism that 
can contribute neither warmth, life, inspiration nor 
power to lift us above the weight and weariness of 


gin.” 


Dr. Stowe, in “Boston Herald,” Dec. 15, 1905. 


XXV 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PROGRESS 


OME say that other Christian sects are more 
progressive than the Catholic Church, more 
up to date. 

Perhaps those living in Christ’s day said He was 
not progressive and that the Apostles were behind 
the times. No doubt the early Church worshipping 
in the Catacombs seemed out of date to the cultured 
Romans. But Christian Civilization is progress, and 
it is the result of the Catholic Church. There is 
no more progressive country in the world to-day than 
Catholic Belgium. 

However, Christ did not come to give us worldly 
prosperity. In fact, He was poor and the Apostles 
were poor. His great gifts were truth and eternal life. 
There is no progress in truth. The multiplication 
table has made no progress from the beginning. If 
the Catholic Church was true when it came from 
Christ, it is true now, and will be true to the end of 
time. What is false may make progress towards 
truth, but truth is always the same. 

That is why the teaching of the Catholic Church 
never changes. It is the same now as in the days 


of the Apostles, Customs and forms which follow 
89 


90 AERIS 1) ORT CAGE 


from doctrine may change according to practical 
needs, but the doctrine never. No new truth has 
been taught since the Apostles. The Supreme Court 
of the United States does not add to the Constitution 
by its decisions, but only clarifies it. So the Catholic 
Church by its infallible pronouncements does not 
add to or change the truth of Christ, but only de 
clares its meaning. 


Non-Catuoric TEstrmMony 


“This glorious Elizabethan age with its Shakes- 
peare, as the outcome and flowerage of all which had 
preceded it, is itself attributable to the Catholics of 
the Middle Ages. The Catholic faith which was the 
theme of Dante’s song had produced this Practical 
Life which Shakespeare was to sing.” 

Tuomas CartyLe, Heroes and Hero-Worship, 
p. 138. 


“The Catholic Church is the only historical reli- 
gion that can conceivably thus adapt itself to the 
wants of the present day, without virtually ceasing 
to be itself. It is the only religion that can keep its 
identity without losing its life, and keep its life 
without losing its identity ; that can enlarge its teach- 
ings without changing them, that can be always the 
same, and yet always developing.” 

Wittram Hourrett Matzock, Is Life Worth 
Living? p. 313. | | 


THE CHURCH AND PROGRESS 91 


“When Europe had sunk in the most extreme 
moral, intellectual and political degradation, a con- 
stant stream of missionaries poured forth from the 
monasteries, who spread the knowledge of the cross 
and the seeds of a future civilization through every’ 
land from Lombardy to Sweden, and in addition to 
their noble devotion, carried into their awe 
efforts the most masterly judgment.” 


Lreoxy, History of European Morals from Aur 
gustus to Charlemagne, XII, Chap. 4, p. 190. 


“In any true reading of history, the Church and 
her establishments were the only asylums in which 
the spirit of freedom and of independence of mind 
were lodged, kept alive, and nursed to their present 
maturity.” 


SamvueEL Larne, Observations on the Political 
and Social State of Hurope, Chap. 15, p. 394. 


“The Church had moreover agitated all the great 
questions which concern man; she was solicitous 
about all the problems of his nature, about all the 
chances of his destiny. Hence her influence on mod- 
ern civilization has been immense; greater, perhaps, 
than has been imagined by her most ardent adver- 
saries or her most zealous advocates. Absorbed either 
in her defense or in aggression, they considered her 
only in a polemic point of view, and they have failed, 


92 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


I am convinced, in judging her with fairness and in 
measuring her in all her dimensions.” 


Francois Guizot, Histoire de la Cwilssation en 
Europe, deputs le Quinzieme Strécle jusqu’ & 
la Révolution Francaise, Lect. V, p. 126. 


“The Papacy remains, not in decay, not a mere 
antique, but full of life and youthful vigor. The 
Catholic Church is still sending forth to the farthest 
ends of the world missionaries as zealous as those 
who landed in Kent with Augustine, and still con- 
fronting hostile kings with the same spirit with which 
she confronted Attila. The number of her children 
is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions 
in the new World more than compensate for what 
she lost in the old. Her spiritual ascendancy extends 
over the vast countries which lie between the plains 
of the Missouri and Cape Horn,—countries which a 
century hence may not improbably contain a popula- 
tion as large as that which now inhabits Europe.” 


Macavzray’s Hssays, Ranke’s History of the 
Popes, III, p. 303. 


XXVI 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND OURSELVES 


true Church in the world. This means that 
the only right choice is between Paganism and 
Catholicism. 

By Paganism is meant self-worship in one form 
or other. The pagans fashioned their own deities 
and worshiped them. very vice had its deity. 
Modern pagans make their own religion which in 
many cases is the negation of religion. They erect a 
shrine of their own design which answers to their 
own wishes, inclinations and passions and call it their 
religion. It is modified paganism, or if you will, 
de-Christianized Christianity. 

Catholicism alone teaches the entire and unadul- 
terated truth of Christ. No other religion even 
claims to be infallible. A church which is not in- 
fallible may by its own admission teach falsehood. 
No church of Christ can do that. Consequently, the 
logical thing is to reject all Christianity or accept 
Catholicism. If one enters the Catholic Church one 


must be convinced that it is as true as Christ A 
93 


| the Catholic Church is not true, there is no 


94 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


Catholic listens to the Church in matters of faith 
and morals as if Christ were speaking. By the 
Church Christ thus continues His ministry in the 
world; by it He is the Light of the world. 


Non-Catuortic TEstrmony 


“T have seen a good many Roman Catholics on their 
dying beds, and it always appeared to me that they 
accepted the inevitable with a composure which 
showed that their belief, whether or not the beat to 
live by, was a better one to die by than most of the 
harder creeds which have replaced it.” 


Dr. Otiver Wenpett Hormes, Over the Tea 
Cups, p. 250. 


“Sir William Scott informs me that he heard John- 
son say, ‘A man who is converted from Protestantism 
to Popery may be sincere; he parts with nothing; he 
is only superadding to what he already had. Buta 
convert from Popery to Protestantism gives up so 
much of what he has held as sacred, . . . there is 
so much laceration of mind in such a conversion, 
that it can hardly be sincere and lasting.’ The truth 
of this reflection may be confirmed by many and 
eminent instances, some of which will occur to most 
of my readers.” 


Jamus Boswett, Infe of Johnson, I, p. 351. 


“T shall endeavor to show that all those forces of 


THE CHURCH AND OURSELVES 95 


science which it was once thought would be fatal to 
the Church of Rome are now in a way which consti- 
tutes one of the great surprises of history, so grouping 
themselves, as to afford her a new foundation. . 

“In exact proportion as Protestantism exhibits its 
inability to vindicate for herself, either in theory or 
in practice, any teaching authority which is really an 
authority at all, the perfection of the Roman system 
theoretically and practically alike becomes, in this 
particular respect, more and more striking and 
obvious. ... | 

“Tn this way it is then that modern historical criti- 
cism is working to establish, so far as intellectual 
consistency is concerned, the Roman theory of Chris- 
tianity, and to destroy the theory of Protestantism, 
for it shows that Christian doctrine can neither be 
defined nor verified except by an authority which, as 
both logic and experience prove, Rome alone can with 
any plausibility claim.” 


Witu1am Hvurrett Matzocr, in “Nineteenth 


Century,” XLVI, pp. 675, 753. 


XXVIT 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE WORLD 


HE world is necessarily opposed to the Catho- 
lic Church. By the world we mean those 
who live mainly for the pleasures of this 

earthly existence. The Catholic Church, with Christ, 
proclaims that man’s destiny is not here but here- 
after. The world opposed Christ, and it opposes 
His Church, because the world’s policy is directly 
opposite to Christ’s. Christ and His Church stand 
for Eternal life, the world for this life. It is the 
temporal versus the eternal. The world’s motto is: 
“Let us eat, drink and be merry, to-morrow we die.” 
Christ says: “It is appointed unto men once to die, 
and after this, the judgment.” (Heb. ix, 27). 

The worldly man is carried away by inclination 
and passion; the follower of Christ controls his ten- 
dencies by the law of God. The worldly man yields 
to temptation, the follower of Christ conquers it; 
the worldling surrenders to his desires, the follower 
of Christ puts aside everything that God prohibits; 
the carnal man drifts with the tide of sensuality, the 
follower of Christ constantly struggles against it. 


In a word, the policy and purpose of the world is 
96 


THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD 97 


directly antagonistic to the teaching of Christ. 
Hence, between the world and Christ there is bound 
to be antagonism. We must choose between them. 
Christ declared: “He that is not with me, is against 
me: .. .” (Matt. xii, 30). The Catholic Church is 
the sure guide to eternal life. It holds out no worldly 
inducements, but points the way to everlasting 
happiness, 


Non-Catruoric TErstrimony 


“Consider what the Church did for education. 
Her ten thousand monasteries kept alive and trans- 
mitted that torch of learning which otherwise would 
have been extinguished long before. A religious edu- 
cation, incomparably superior to the mere athleticism 
of the noble’s hall, was extended to the meanest serf 
who wished it. This fact alone, by proclaiming the 
dignity of the individual, elevated the entire hopes 
and destiny of the race. The humanizing machinery 
of schools and universities, the civilizing propaganda 
of missionary zeal, were they not due to her? And, 
more than this, her very existence was a living edu- 
cation. It showed that the excessive ages were not 
sporadic and accidental scenes, but were continuous 
and inherent acts in the one great drama. In Chris- 
tendom the yearnings of the past were fulfilled; the 
direction of the future determined. In dim but 
magnificent procession, ‘the giant forms of empires 


98 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


on their way to ruin’ had each ceded to her their 
scepters, bequeathed to her their gifts. There was 
no cleft between pagan and Christian; no break be- 
tween Jerusalem and Rome. The Poetry, the Patri- 
otism, the Tolerance of Heathendom were incorpo- 
rated with the Holiness, the Universality, the Hopes 
of the True Faith. Life became one broad, rejoicing 
river, whose tributaries, once severed, were now 
united, and whose majestic stream, without one break 
in its continuity, flowed on under the common sun- 
light from its Source beneath the throne of God.” 


Canon Farrar, Christeanity and the Race, 
Hulsean Lecture, 1870, p. 186. 


“In the first place, the Church educated the 
Romano-Germanic nations, and educated them in a 
sense other than that in which the Eastern Church 
educated the Greeks, Slavs and Orientals... . It 
brought Christian civilization to young nations, and 
brought it not only once so as to keep them at its first 
stage. No! It gave them something which was 
capable of exercising a progressive educational 
influence.” 

Apotr Harnack, What Is Christianity? Lect. 
ALV, ip. 261 


“Society from the bottom has always interested me 
profoundly. The only reason why government did 
not suffer dry rot in the Middle Ages, under the 


THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD 99 


aristocratic system which then prevailed, was that 
most of the men who were efficient instruments of 
government were drawn from the Church—from that 
great religious body which was the only Church, that 
body which we now distinguish from other religious 
bodies, as the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church 
was then, as it is now, a great democracy. There 
was no peasant so humble that he might not become 
a priest, and no priest so obscure that he might not 
become Pope of Christendom, and every chancellery 
in Europe, every court in Europe, was ruled by the 
learned, trained, and accomplished men—the priest- 
hood of the great and dominant Church. What kept 
government alive in the Middle Ages was this con- 
stant rise of the sap from the bottom, from the rank 
and file of the great body of the people through the 
open channels of the priesthood. That, it seems to 
me, is one of the most extraordinary illustrations that 
could possibly be adduced of the thing I am talking 
about.” 


Wooprow Witson, The New Freedom. 


“Forty years ago there were but thirty Popish 
chapels in England: last year there were five hun- 
dred and ten; twenty or thirty more are rising from 
their foundations. About an hour since I passed 
by one of prodigious size, between Clifton and Bris- 
tol. Twenty-five years ago, there was one small room 
in Bath, by courtesy called a chapel. It might con- 


100 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


tain fifty persons, leaving but scanty room for the 
censer to swing about in. There are now about three 
thousand. In Liverpool and in Manchester the 
number of those who are returning to the ancient 
faith is proportionally great. How is all this? The 
English are less liable than most other nations, per- 
haps than any other on earth, to be captivated with 
music, with painting, with sculpture, with gesticula- 
tions and finery and perfumes; they are not fond of 
opening their hearts in confession ; they are not easily 
wheedled out of their money; they are suspicious 
if their wives and daughters lend their ears, without 
good security, to a priest; they neither grant pardon 
nor receive it too readily. Bibles have been given 
to them unsparingly, and tracts for all their neces- 
sities; quite in vain” 
Progress of Popery, by Rev. E. Brckersteta, 
cited by the “Eastern Star,” 15th February, 
1840. 


XXVIII 


THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND ACCUSA- 
TIONS 


HERE have been abuses in the Church of 

Christ from the beginning. Councils and 

Synods have been held at various times to 

discuss remedies, and the greatest saints have worked 

at reformation; but always these abuses coneerned 
conduct, not doctrine. 

We must remember that Christ was both God and 
man, divine and human. As man He was subject 
to fatigue, hunger, disappointment,—everything ex- 
cept sin. His Church also has its human side, even 
though she be divine. Men, not angels, are her 
agents. Christ’s guarantee did not cover conduct, 
but teaching. Some of the leaders of the Church 
who have upheld her doctrine steadfastly have been 
delinquent in conduct. The spirit is willing, but 
the flesh is weak. Yet in spite of human frailty, 
Christ’s Church has never taught error nor ever shall. 

The wonder is not that there were abuses, but that 
there were not more, for human nature is weak and 
Christ’s standards are high. Evil is conspicuous, 


virtue is hidden. The virtuous lives of the great body 
101 


102 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


of clergy and people make the evil of a few con- 
spicuous. Moreover, since the reformation, English 
history has been written mostly by the enemies of 
the Catholic Church, and we all know what enemy 
testimony is. Christ was falsely accused, so is His 
Church ; but from Christ’s day to our own no accusa- 
tion of false teaching can be sustained against the 
Catholic Church. This is proof that Christ is with 
her. No other Church in the world can show the 
divine credentials which the Catholic Church 
presents.* 


Non-Catuotic TESTIMony 


“Though seemingly enslaved, the Church was in 
reality the life of Europe. She was the refuge of 
the distressed, the friend of the slave, the helper of 
the injured, the only hope of learning. To her, chiv- 
alry owed its noble inspiration; to her, art and agri- 
culture looked for every improvement. The ruler 
from her learned some rude justice; the ruled learned 
faith and obedience. Let us not cling to the super- 
stition which teaches that the Church has always 
upheld the cause of tyrants. Through the Middle — 
Ages she was the only friend and advocate of the 
people, and of the rights of man. To her influence 
was it owing that through all that strange era the 
slaves of Europe were better protected by law than 


* See Credentials of Christianity, by Martin J. Scott, S.J. 


THE CHURCH AND ACCUSATIONS 103 


are now the free blacks of the United States by the 
national statutes.” 


“North American Review,” July, 1845, p. 26. 


“Abstractedly from all the influences which we 
have sustained in common with the rest of the 
civilized commonwealth, our British disparagement 
of the Middle Ages has been exceedingly enhanced 
by our grizzled ecclesiastical or church historians of 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, men who, 
instead of vindicating the Reformation by the ad- 
vocacy of reverence for holy things, obedience, love, 
charity, sought to establish righteousness through 
vengeance, and in all ways ‘rendering evil for 
vada b 103 

“But the most wide, pervading and influential im- 
pulse to these sentiments emanated from philoso- 
phical France. The wit, the knowledge, all the ac- 
quired talents and mental gifts bestowed upon her 
men of letters during the era of Encyclopedie were 
devoted to their sincere vocation, their avowed object, 
their pride, the subversion of Christianity. .. . 

‘“‘Never do these writers or their school, whether in 
France or in Great Britain, Voltaire, or Mably, 
Hume, Robertson, or Henry, treat the clergy or the 
Church with fairness, not even with common 
honesty.” 

Sir Francois Paterave, History of Normandy 
and England, I, p. xvii. 


XXIX 


THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 
PATRIOTISM 


OME are opposed to the Catholic Church be- 
cause they say its members owe allegiance to 


a foreign power. If God is a foreign power, 
this is true, not otherwise; for, let it be understood, 
allegiance to the Pope is another way of expressing 
allegiance to God. There are no better patriots in 
any nation than the Catholics of that nation. Wit- 
ness Marshal Foch in France and Cardinal Mercier 
in Belgium, and in our own country the legion of 
Catholic men and women who gave unsurpassable 
service in every department during the World War. 
A man cannot be a good Catholic without being a 
good citizen. The Catholic Church teaches obedi- 
ence to lawful government wherever established. 

The more dutiful a Catholic is to the Pope the 
more loyal will he be as a citizen, no matter what 
government he be under. The Church like its 
Founder, Jesus Christ, bids us: “Render therefore 


to Cesar the things that are Cesar’s; and to God 
104 


THE CHURCH AND PATRIOTISM 105 


the things that are God’s” (Matt. xxii, 21). That 
is why Catholics everywhere are distinguished for 
their patriotism. 

If a Catholic is not true to his country he is false 
to his Faith. A Catholic, like an adherent of any 
creed, is human and may be a discredit to his reli- 
gion; but in proportion as one is a good Catholic one 
will be a worthy citizen. 

The Catholic Church inculcates the highest loyalty 
to authority. This is understood by those who know 
conditions. The late Mark Hanna declared that the 
two greatest safeguards of the United States Con- 
stitution were the Supreme Court and the Catholic 
Church. This is noteworthy coming from a non- 
Catholic. This is why anarchistic societies and Bol- 
shevik leaders are so antagonistic to the Catholic 
Church. If the Catholic Church did not stand for 
patriotism it would not be so fiercely attacked by 
organizations opposed to true liberty. 


Non-Catnotic Trstrmony 


“The ceremonial of the order teaches a high and 
noble patriotism, instills a love of country, inculcates 
a reverence for law and order, urges the conscientious 
and unselfish performance of civic duty, and holds 
up the Constitution of our country as the richest 


106 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


and most precious possession of a Knight of the 
Order.” 
Committee of. Masons, Report on the Knights 
of Columbus. 


“To the average American Catholic the Stars and 
Stripes of the American Flag is next in sacredness 
to the Cross of Christ. 

“Tf American institutions were as sacred in the 
hands of those who in books and newspapers seek 
to arouse Protestant prejudice against Catholicism, 
as they are in the hands of the American Catholics, 
but little harm would befall the most sacred safe 
guards which our fathers threw around the religious 
and political liberties which we enjoy.” 


“Texas Democrat,” Tyler, Tex., April 14, 1914. 


“T believe thoroughly that no order of citizens in 
this country is more patriotic and more devoted to 
America to-day than the Knights of Columbus.” 


Governor Hammonp, “The Tribune,” Minne- 
apolis, Oct. 18, 1915. 


“From the beginning of this country to the pres- 
ent hour, the Roman Catholics have been just as loyal 
as Protestants. It is a dastardly thing to do to inti- 
mate that a Catholic can’t be loyal because a foreigner 
is at the head of the Church. Should a mandate oc- 
casioning disloyalty ever be issued by the Pope, the 


THE CHURCH AND PATRIOTISM 107 
Roman Catholics of America would not obey. 


The Roman Catholics have never been over-repre- 
sented in our country; they have been under- 
represented.” 


Rev. Dr. Cuartes E. Jerrerson, Broadway 
Congregational Church, New York, March 2, 
1924. 


“Those who have come into intimate acquaintance 
with representative Catholics did not need to be in- 
formed that they do not concede to the Church au- 
thorities the right to direct their course in political 
matters, but many Protestants, lacking this knowl- 
edge, which comes from personal acquaintance, have 
been misled.” 


Witiiam Jennines Bryan, “The Commoner,” 
Aug., 1915. 


XXX 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH OR PAGANISM 


/ yo one who is well-informed and thinks 
logically, it must be Catholicism or Pas 
ganism. 

By paganism is not meant ancient heathen wor- 
ship, but what that worship signified, namely, self- 
religion. Paganism was the worship of gods of one’s 
own choice, and these gods generally were those which 
passion, pride and vice established. 

So now, if there be not a divine religion the alterna- 
tive is a human religion, a man-made cult, fashioned 
by each one for himself. There is no other logical 
ground. If Catholicism is wrong all the Christian 
sects are hopelessly wrong. All Christianity goes 
under if the Catholic Church sinks, for she is the 
bark of Peter in which Christ rides. If Christ is 
not with Peter, He is certainly not with other craft, 
for to him He entrusted Himself: . . . “TI am with 
you all days, even to the consummation of the world” 
(Matt. xxviii, 20). Hence, if the Catholic Church 
is not true, the logical thing to do is to renounce 


Christianity and embrace paganism. 
108 


THE CHURCH OR PAGANISM = 109 


Man wants to be a law to himself. That is pagan- 
ism. That is why it has so many followers. Chris- 
tianity declares that man must obey the law of God. 
“But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the command- 
ments’ (Matt xix, 17). The Catholic Church 
would have no opposition if it let man do as he liked. 
But with Christ, she says: “Thy kingdom come, Thy 
will be done!” Man must do God’s will, not his own, 
if he wants to enter eternal life. The world wants 
to do its own will. Other creeds make such conces- 
sions to the world that there is little or no antagonism 
to them. 

The Creed of Christ, like Christ Himself, makes 
no compromise with the world. It proclaims with 
Him: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain 
the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul ?” 
(Matt. xvi, 26). Christ triumphed over the world. 
So will His Church. 


Non-Catuortic TErstrmony 


“But, alas! it is only too true that the heavenly 
city which our Puritan Fathers yearned for, and 
sought with prayers and tears, has become to many 
of their Christless descendants a frigid city, of ice 
palaces, built of pale negations, cold, cheerless, shin- 
ing in a pale winter sun with an evanescent glitter of 
a doubtful and unsubstantial intellectual worth. 

“The full, rich, glorious Christ of Catholic Chris- 


110 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


tianity has been dragged from His throne by these 
‘advanced thinkers’ (God save the mark!) and re- 
duced to beggary. 

“Then in their boundless arrogance and self-asser- 
tion they turn upon those of us who still cry with 
Thomas before the Risen One, ‘My Lord and my 
God,’ and tell us that there is no middle ground be- 
tween their own vague and sterile rationalism and 
the Roman Catholic Church. If this be so, then 
for me most gratefully and lovingly I turn to the 
Church of Rome as a homeless, houseless wanderer 
to a home in a continuing city. 

“We are hungry for God, yea, for the living God), 
and hence so restless and dissatisfied.” 


Rev. Cuartes Epwarp Stowe, Congregational 
Church, Bridgewater, Conn. 


“The anti-Christian spirit speaks aloud. We hold 
the Bible for our rule of faith, but I dare not say 
how it is interpreted. ven our universities go so 
far that I fear they are preparing their own down- 
fall, for when the salt loses its savour, it shall be 
cast out and trodden under foot.” 


Mutter, In Arch Mimerva. 


“Many who, until now, believed that they might 
rest upon the teachings of their pastors with as much 
security as on the voice of an angel at the gate of 
heaven, now begin to waver. Advancing a little 


THE CHURCH OR PAGANISM 111 


further, they begin to see more clearly, and fall into 
doubts of whose existence they had never dreamed: 
they have not inquired sufficiently to find their way 
out, and fall at last into indifferentism or despair.” _ 


Hammer Scumipt, The Old Church. 


“From the disunion of the pastors there arises, in 
the heads and hearts of the people, nothing but con- 
fusion. They hear, they read, but no longer do they 
know where they are, whom they should believe, 
whom they are to follow.” 


Lupxz, Abolition of Relegion. 


“Oh! Protestantism! Has it then, at last, come 
to this with thee, that thy disciples protest against 
all religion? Facts, which are before the eyes of 
the whole world, declare aloud that this signification 
of thy name is no idle play upon words, though I 
know that the confession will excite a flame of in- 
dignation against myself.” 


Dr. JaniscuH, on Diwwine Worship and Ecclesi- 
astical Reform. 


“But the actual, habitual and detailed charity of 
private persons which is so conspicuous a feature in 
all Christian societies was scarcely known in an- 
tiquity.’. . . When the victory of Christianity was 
achieved, the enthusiasm for charity displayed itself 
in the erection of numerous institutions that were 


112 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


altogether unknown to the pagan world. A Roman 
lady, named Fabiola, in the fourth century, founded 
at Rome, as an act of penance, the first public hos- 
pital, and the charity planted by that woman’s hand 
overspread the world and will alleviate to the end 
of time the darkest anguish of humanity... . 

“The Council of Nice ordered that one should be 
erected. in every city. ... The enthusiasm of 
charity thus manifested in the Church speedily at- 
tracted the attention of the pagans. The ridicule 
of Lucian and the vain efforts of Julian to produce a 
rival system of charity within the limits of paganism 
emphatically attested both its preéminence and its 
eatholicity. ... 

“The greatest things are often those which are most 
imperfectly realized; and surely no achievements of 
the Christian Church are more truly great than those 
which it has effected in the sphere of charity. For 
the first time in the history of mankind it has in- 
spired many thousands of men and women, at the 
sacrifice of all worldly interests, and often under 
circumstances of extreme discomfort or danger, to 
devote their entire lives to the single object of as- 
suaging the sufferings of humanity. It has covered 
the globe with countless institutions of mercy, abso- 
lutely unknown to the pagan world. It has indis- 
solubly united in the minds of men the idea of 
supreme goodness with that of active and constant 
benevolence. It has placed in every parish a reli- 


THE CHURCH OR PAGANISM = 113 


gious minister, who, whatever may be his other func- 
tions, has at least been officially charged with the 
superintendence of an organization of charity, and 
who finds in this office one of the most important as 
well as one of the most legitimate sources of his 
power.” 


Lucky, History of European Morals from Aur 
gustus to Charlemagne, I1, pp. 82-91. 


XXXT 


THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, THE LIGHT OF 
THE WORLD 


E have not here a lasting city. Life is 
but the way to eternity. In life we 
must show God whether we are with or 

against Him. Without temptation there would be no 
virtue. Only the virtuous may hope to be dwellers 
in God’s holy city, as we have been told that noth- 
ing defiled can enter God’s home. Man’s main pur- 
pose in life is not to cull the flowers by the wayside, 
but to keep in the way to eternal life. Christ came 
on earth to lead us to heaven. ‘But as many as re- 
ceived him, he gave them power to be made the sons 
of God, .. .” (Johni, 12). That is man’s destiny. 
That gained, everything is gained; that lost, all is 
lost. This is the true explanation of life. 

God became man not to make us rich nor powerful 
nor long-lived; He did not come to give us anything 
which human endeavor could achieve. His purpose 
in coming was to elevate us into a participation with 
the divine nature, to make us sharers of divinity, to 


enable us to become the children of God by adoption. 
114 


THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD = 115 


“They that shall be accounted worthy .. . can 
die no more: for they are ae to the Angels, and 
are the children of God: . . .” (Luke xx, 35-6). 
That is the meaning and purpose of Christ’s Ogee 
and of His religion. 

The Catholic Church is the continuation of Christ’s 
ministry in the world. “As the Father hath sent me, 
I also send you” (John xx, 21). Like Him, she is 
the Light of the World. Go to her for sure guidance 
to everlasting life. 


Non-Catruoric TEstrmony 


“Thousands upon thousands of German Protes- 
tants, whose religious adherence had been strength- 
ened by the official backing of the State Church, have 
passed to anti-religion or to anti-Christian atheism, 
since the collapse of the imperial régime. The true 
religious portion of Protestantism, that still boasts 
of clinging to a Creed and a Church, is in reality 
deprived, by the downfall of the Empire and of the 
German National Protestant Church, of the only 
basis upon which its religious activity was founded. 
The religious life, therefore, which was nourished 
by the State Church, is menaced with ruin. The 
need, moreover, of a force which can assert itself 
with authority, such as the authority of the Catholic 
Church, is increasingly felt. 

“Never can the Protestant sects, despised atoms 


116 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


of the great whole of Protestantism, strengthen them- 
selves under such conditions. The Catholic Church 
only can do that by means of her unity and authority. 
For that reason, and for that reason only, do numbers 
of Protestants seek their way to the Catholic Church, 
to find there a certain refuge in their distress. We 
ought then to own up that the German Protestant 
Church, so far as it is the State Church, has proved 
itself a conspicuous failure by the fact of the ruin of 
Germany in the World War.” 


Dr. Srerr, Lutheran Pastor, in Kolnische 
Volkszectung. 


“The Roman Church has always been cosmopoli- 
tan. There have been popes from England, Holland, 
Germany, France, Spain and Italy. Her churches 
lift their spires from Norway to Sicily, from Quebec 
to Patagonia. Her missionaries have sacrificed their 
lives over all the world. Her strength has been that 
she is the Church Universal. England recognizes the 
King as the head of the Anglican Church; Russia 
the Czar as the head of the Greek Church; but the 
Roman Church has never been bounded by national 
boundary lines; she alone has been able to put be- 
fore the western world the ideal of a Church for 
humanity. This has been the source of her peculiar 
atttraction; and in the next century, with the na- 
tional barriers broken down, her claims to universal 
acceptance and obedience will be stronger than ever. 


THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 117 


Americans cannot kneel to an English king, nor pros- 
trate themselves before a Ozar of Russia, but many 
will do both before him, who has the only claim to 
be considered the High Priest of Christendom... . 

“In the past, the Roman Church has achieved her 
greatest victories in the face of the greatest powers 
of the world. First she subdued the Roman Empire; 
after its fall she met the Teutonic emperors as a rival ; 
and now after the Holy Roman Empire has passed 
away, she still treats with the governments as an 
equal, She is the only organization which has suc- 
ceeded in adapting itself to the varying needs of 
men for nineteen hundred years. Again and again 
she has fallen into servitude, of German emperors, 
of Roman nobles, of the kings of France: again and 
again she has risen with undiminished vitality. It 
is not strange that many who think that some divine 
power stood behind the early Christian Church, 
should believe that the same power guides and pre- 
serves the Church of Rome.” 


H. D. Sspewicx, in “Atlantic Monthly,” 
LXX XIV, p. 447. 


“When we look back upon past ages, and behold 
how the Papacy has outlived all other institutions, 
how it has witnessed the rise and wane of so many 
States—itself, amid the endless fluctuations of 
human things, preserving and asserting the self-same 
unchangeable spirit—can we wonder that many look 


118 CHRIST OR CHAOS 
to it as that Rock which rears itself unshaken amid 
the beating surges of time?’ 


Horrer, Protestant historian writing on Pope 
Innocent III. 


PART II 
CATHOLIC DOCTRINE 





FOREWORD 


“But here is a suggestion: Publicity. I mean pub- 
licity concerning the Catholic Church, and I do not 
mean the usual sort of newspaper publicity but print- 
ing the facts concerning the Catholic Church.” 

Lowett Metuett, in the “Atlantic Monthly,” 
Nov., 1923. 


The above quotation is from a non-Catholic who 
deplores the antagonisms of his coreligionists to the 
Catholic Church. He cites some examples to show 
that this antagonism is due to wrong ideas about the 
Church. 

The following pages will give a correct notion of 
what Catholics believe, and of how belief should affect 
their lives. Many persons desire to know the teach- 
ing of the Church, but shrink from perusing the dry 
pages of a catechism. 

The part which follows will give an inquirer a good 


knowledge of the faith and practice of Catholics. 


121 


tat ‘ 
dav vad f 
tt, y iN yi) ny 
abd 


dd fate meen’ 
ae vie yi 
he et 





I 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 


OR the Catholic, the Church is the Voice of 
in God. Christ said of His Church: “He that 

heareth you, hetareth me. . . .” (Luke x, 
16). The most comforting thing in life is certainty, 
and a Catholic has no doubts about the great affairs 
of the soul. This gives that peace which Christ 
promised His followers. 

Catholics are not looking for truth, they have it. 
The Church speaks with the authority of God in 
matters of faith and morals. The Church teaches 
only what Christ commanded her to teach,—it is not 
her own doctrine but God’s. It is not a question 
with her of what may please people, but of what she 
has been commissioned to teach them. 

The teaching of Christ binds Pope as well as priest 
and people. The mission of the Church is not to 
make us prosperous, but to enable us to live right, 
no matter what our condition of life. We go to her, 
therefore, as to a mother who will rear us to be chil- 
dren of God. Man’s career only begins in this life. 
Those who serve God faithfully here will be members 


of the divine family hereafter. 
123 


124 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


The Catholic Church is God’s means of conveying 
to mankind eternal truth. Science is experimental, 
and therefore changes; Christ was not experimental, 
but eternal Truth,—hence His religion never changes 
because truth never changes. Error changes and may 
advance towards truth, but truth has no need to 
change; hence it is that Christ’s Church has never 
changed its creed and never will. Any church whose 
creed changes is not Christ’s. Truth though fixed is 
not therefore dead; in fact, is the most dynamic of 
all things. Christian civilization is one of the visible 
effects of the power of truth. Christian Faith, Hope 
and Charity are the greatest forces in life. 


Non-Catnortic TErstimony 


“She (the Church of Rome) is ideally, if not 
actually, the parliament of the believing world. Her 
doctrines, as she one by one unfolds them, emerge 
upon us like petals from a half-closed bud. They 
are not added arbitrarily from without; they are 
developed from within. They are the flowers con- 
tained from the first in the bud of our moral con- 
sciousness. When she formulates in these days 
something which has not been formulated before, she 
is no more enunciating a new truth than was Newton 
- when he enunciated the theory of gravitation. What- 
ever truths, hitherto hidden, she may in the course 
of time grow conscious of, she holds that these were 


THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 125 


always implied in her teaching, though before she 
did not know it; just as gravitation was implied in 
many ascertained facts that men knew well enough 
long before they knew that it was implied in them. 
Thus far, then, the Church of Rome essentially is 
the spiritual sense of humanity, speaking to men 
through its proper and only possible organ. Its 
intricate machinery, such as its systems of representa- 
tion, its methods of voting, the appointment of its 
speaker, and the legal formalities required in the 
recording of its decrees, are things accidental only; 
or, if they are necessary, they are necessary only in 
a secondary way.” 


Witt1am Hurrett Mattock, Is Infe Worth 
Inving? p. 280. 


“Two generations ago, the leading reformers were 
looked upon as little less than saints; now a party 
has risen up who intend, as they frankly tell us, to 
un-Protestantize the Church of England, who detest 
Protestantism as a kind of infidelity; who desire 
simply to reverse everything which the reformers 
CCR aac | 

“One notices these things not as of much impor- 
tance in themselves, but as showing which way the 
stream is running; and curiously enough in quite 
another direction we see the same phenomenon. Our 
liberal philosophers, men of high literary power and 
reputation, looking into the history of Luther, and 


126 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


Calvin, and John Knox, and the rest, find them fall- 
ing short of the philosophic ideal, wanting sadly in 
many qualities which the liberal mind cannot dis- 
pense with. ... 

“An unfavorable estimate of the reformers, 
whether just or unjust, is unquestionably gaining 
ground among our advanced thinkers.” 


Froupe, Short Studies, p. 43. 


IT 
AUTHORITY 


HRIST spoke with authority, and thus the 
Church which is truly His must speak with 
authority. That is why the Catholic 

Church is authoritative. No church is divine that 
is not authoritative. 

The attraction of man-made religions is that they 
do not speak with authority, but make an appeal to 
man, leaving him free to accept or reject. There is 
but one religion in the world which speaks with 
divine authority. All the others leave man more 
or less free to make his own creed. 

Some people say: “My relsgton is this or that.” 
It is not a question of my religion or thy religion, 
but of Christ’s religion. Christ did not come from 
heaven to engage in debate nor to propose doubtful 
teaching, but to give mankind once for all the truth 
which would make all who accepted it, and lived by 
it, the children of His Father. While on earth Christ 
spoke as God Almighty, He said He was the Way, 
the Truth and the Life; as the living truth, He prom- 


ised to be with His Church forever. That is why 
127 


128 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


she speaks with His authority and never has nor 
never will change her creed. 

Christ did not propose His doctrine, He imposed 
it. Although the most gentle and considerate person 
in the history of the world, once He spoke, there 
was no debate nor discussion. Fifteen hundred years 
ago St. Augustine said of the Catholic Church, in 
regard to a decision given by the Pope over a contra- 
verted matter: ‘Rome has spoken, the matter is 
settled.” | 

In the exercise of her authority the Church does 
not consider the fear or favor of man, but only the 
interests of God and truth. She may gain or lose 
by her authoritative attitude, but always she speaks 
as the representative of God, in matters of Faith 
and Morals. 

As a political power, her conduct may or may not 
have been universally wise. Christ gave no political 
guarantee to His Church. But He gave her a guar- 
antee of divine truth in all things pertaining to the 
eternal salvation of mankind. Hence her voice of 
authority in the world. 


Non-Catuortic TEstrimony 


“We shall understand this more clearly if we con- 
sider one of the characteristics that a revelation neces- 
sarily claims. . . . The characteristic I speak of is 
an absolute infallibility. Any supernatural religion 


AUTHORITY 129 


that renounces its claim to this, it is clear, can claim 
to be a semi-revelation only. It is a hybrid thing, 
partly natural and partly supernatural, and it thus 
practically has all the qualities of religion that is 
wholly natural. In so far as it professes to be re- 
vealed, it of course professes to be infallible; but if 
the revealed part be in the first place hard to dis- 
tinguish, and in the second place hard to understand, 
if it may mean many things, and many of these 
things contradictory, it might just as well have never 
been made at all. To make it in any sense an in- 
fallible revelation, or in other words a revelation at 
all, to us, we need a power to interpret the Testa- 
ment that shall have equal authority with that 
Testament itself.” 


Witit1am Horrett Mattock, Js Life Worth 
Inving? p. 274. 


“The land which was the cradle of the reformation 
has become the grave of the reformed faith. ... All 
comparatively recent works on Germany, as well as 
all personal observation, tell the same tale. Denial 
of every tenet of the Protestant faith among the think- 
ing classes, and indifference among the masses, are 
the positive and negative agencies beneath which the 
church of Luther and Melancthon has succumbed.” 


“Edinburgh Review,” October, 1880, pp. 271, 
276. 


130 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


“The statement signed by 150 Presbyterian minis- 
ters and published to-day in the newspapers will be 
understood in different ways by different people. It 
will be understood in its true sense by all who are 
familiar with the present religious situation, no mat- 
ter what their own religious views may be; they will 
understand perfectly well that many of the signers 
of this declaration agree in being opposed not only 
to the creed of the Presbyterian Church, but to every- 
thing that is really distinctive of historic Christianity. 

“But. plain people in the Church will unquestion- 
ably be misled. What these signers regard as ‘the 
ories’ are regarded by plain people, whether in the 
Church or outside of it, as the basal facts or alleged 
facts, like the emergence of the body of Jesus from 
the tomb, with which Christianity stands or falls. 

“The declaration as a whole is a deplorable at- 
tempt to obscure the issue. The plain fact is that 
two mutually exclusive religions are being proclaimed 
in the pulpits of the Presbyterian Church. They 
have been recognized as mutually exclusive by all 
clear-sighted persons, both radical and conservative. 
One is the great redemptive religion known as Chris- 
tianity—a religion founded upon certain super- 
natural events in the first century of our era; the 
other is the naturalistic Modernism, anti-Christian 
to the core, which is represented by some of the 
signers of the present declaration.” _ 

Dr. J. Gresuam Macuen, Princeton Theo- 
logical Seminary, Jan. 9, 1924. 


AUTHORITY 131 


“Were Luther to rise again from the grave, he 
could not possibly recognize as his own, or as mem- 
bers of the society which he founded, those teachers 
who in our Church would fain, nowadays, be consid- 
ered as his successors. He founded his Church in 
Saxony. We come together to thank God for its 
foundation, but alas! it is no more.” 


Reryuarp, On Church Reform. 


“Our people are driven about by every wind of 
doctrine. We may perhaps still know what they 
believe in religion to-day, but we are not sure that 
to-morrow they will believe the same. In what single 
point are those who have declared war against the 
Pope agreed among themselves? If we take the 
trouble to examine the Articles from the first to the 
last, we shall find that there is not one which is not 
admitted by some as an article of faith, and by others 
rejected as ungodly.” 


AnprEew Doupirx, Epistles to Beza. 


Aue! 
FAITH 


AITH is not opposed to reason but above it. 
Faith reveals for the most part what is be- 
yond the power of man’s intellect to know by 
its own efforts. 

In daily life human faith plays an essential part. 
We put faith in the physician, the druggist, the his- 
torian, the government; the astronomer and the 
chemist reveal much to us which we should never 
know by our own research. We accept much on the 
word of others whom we trust. This is human faith. 

Divine faith is the acceptance of a statement be- 
cause God has made it. We may not understand 
the truth so revealed, but we accept it on God’s word. 
If we trust our fellow-man, much more should we 
trust God. Hence we believe the Trinity not because 
we understand it, but because God has revealed it. 
It is called a mystery because it transcends human 
understanding. Other mysteries are the Incarnation 
and the Eucharist. 

The Catholic Religion, like its Founder, is divine. 
We should, therefore, expect to find mysteries in it. 


Since we do not comprehend ourselves, it should not 
132 


FAITH 133 


surprise us if we do not comprehend God or His ways. 
God wants us to reverence and serve Him, not to 
explain Him or His ways. He will do that in His 
own good time and manner. 

There are some who think that faith is only for 
children or the ignorant, and that it calls for the 
surrender of reason. It is just the reverse of this. 
Faith is not a blind acceptance of a creed, but the 
result of the best use of our God-given reason. It is 
not unreasonable to trust to an accredited guide over 
a dangerous and unknown wilderness, but reason dic- 
tates that one should be sure that the guide is trust- 
worthy and in every way guaranteed. Once reason is 
convinced of the guide’s credentials, it is most rea- 
sonable to trust oneself to the guide. Instead of 
surrendering reason, it is employing it most ration- 
ally, for reason dictates that it is wise to follow one 
who is better informed than oneself. 

We do this every day in practical affairs. Every 
time we consult a lawyer or physician we are acting 
on faith. We take every reasonable means of know- 
ing that the physician or lawyer is competent and 
then trust him. It is the same with regard to reli- 
gion. Christ established His Church and guaranteed 
that it should always teach the truth. To trust to 
this guarantee and have faith in His Church is 
highly reasonable. The greatest intellects in the his- 
tory of mankind have bowed down in faith to the 


134 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


Church established and guaranteed by Jesus Christ, 
the Son of God. 

Pasteur, the founder of modern medicine, recog- 
nized as one of the great scientists of all time, said: 
“The more I know, the more nearly is my faith that 
of the Breton peasant. If I could know all I would 
have the faith of a Breton peasant woman.” 


Non-Catuortic Trstrmony 


“The Protestants, blind to the unity and strength 
resulting from the policy of the Catholics, weakened 
themselves more and more by division. The Re 
formed Swiss were almost more inimical to the 
Lutherans than the Catholics were, and the general 
mania for disputation and theological obstinacy pro- 
duced divisions among the reformers themselves. 
When in 1562 Bullinger set up the Helvetic Con- 
fession to which the Pfalz Association consented in 
Zurich, Basle refused, and maintained a particular 
Confession.” 


Menzex, History of Germany, II, p. 276. 


“Protestantism is a kind of modern Cerberus with 
a hundred and twenty-five heads, all barking discord- 
antly, and is like the mob of Ephesus. Thoughtful 
Christians, looking on and beholding with sadness 
this confusion worse confounded, cannot fail to ask: 
‘Did our Lord Jesus Christ come on this earth to 


FAITH 135 


establish this pitiful mob of debating societies, or a 
church of the living God, capable of making itself 
felt as a pillar and a ground of the faith? ” 


Dr. Cuartes Epwarp Stows, in the ‘Boston , 
Herald,” Dec. 15, 1905. 


“Aristarchus in his day could hardly find seven 
wise men in Greece; but amongst us (English) are 
hardly to be found so many ignorant persons; for 
all are teachers, all divinely inspired. There is no 
fanatic or clown from the lowest dregs of the people 
who dares not give his dreams as the word of God. 
. . . These have filled our cities, villages, camps, 
houses, nay, our churches and pulpits too, and lead 
the poor, deluded people with them to the pit of 
perdition.” 

BisHop Brian Watton, Biblia Polyglotta 
(Preface). 


“Sectarianism is wasteful and un-Christian; 57 
denominations would not be so bad, but 257 is a 
crime. I do not believe that the Lord had anything 
to do with the making of 18 kinds of Methodists, 13 
kinds of Baptists and 14 kinds of Presbyterians.” 

Rev. Witi1am Horace Day, Pres. American Mis- 

sionary Society, “Boston Herald,” Dec. 16, 
1923. 


“Kiverything about the Catholic Church is positive 
and transcendent; she is the bearer of divine truth, 


136 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


the representative of divine order, the supernatural 
living in the very heart, and before the very fact of 
the natural. The saints, too, are hers, and the man 
she receives joins their communion, enjoys their 
godly fellowship, feels their influence, participates 
in their merits and the blessings they distribute. 
Their earthly life made the past of the Church illus- 
trious, their heavenly activity binds the visible and 
the invisible into unity and lifts time into eternity. 
To honour the saints is to honour our sanctity; the 
Church which teaches man to live holy, helps him to 
love holiness. And the fathers are hers; their labour- 
ings, sufferings, martyrdoms, were for her sake; 
she treasures their words and their works; her sons 
alone were able to say: ‘Athanasius and Chrysostom, 
Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, Cyprian and Au- 
eustine, Anselm and Bernard are ours; their wealth 
is our inheritance; at their feet we learn filial rever- 
ence and divine wisdom.’ But, rich as she is in per- 
son, she is higher in truth; her worship is a great 
deep. Hidden sanctities and meanings surround 
man; the sacramental principle invests the simplest 
things; acts and rites, with an awful yet blissful 
significance turn all worship into a divine parable, 
which speaks the deep things of God, now into a 
medium of His gracious and consolatory approach 
to man, and man’s awed and contrite, hopeful and 
prevailing approach to Him. Symbols are deeper 
than words; speak when words become silent; gain 


FAITH 137 


where words lose in meanings; and so in hours of 
holiest worship the Church teaches by symbols truth 
language may not utter.” 


Pror. A. M. Farrparn, in the “New Zealand - 
Tablet.” 


IV 
GOD 


HERE is a personal God who made all things 
out of nothing, simply by His creative 
power. 

God is eternal, infinite, all-powerful, all-knowing. 
He rules the universe and especially man. He will 
reward the good and punish the wicked in His own 
time and way. 

In God there are Three Persons: The Father, The 
Son and the Holy Ghost. Hence there is One God 
and in this One God there are Three Persons. This 
is not a contradiction, for it is not said that there are 
three gods in One God, but Three Persons in One 
God. This is the mystery of the Holy Trinity. 

It is above but not against our understanding. 
We do not understand ourselves, much less may we 
understand God. We should not know this much 
about God except by His revelation. God does not 
require us to understand His nature, but to believe 
His word. He gave us our reason, we may there- 
fore trust Him not to ask us to accept what is un- 
reasonable. 


If He explained everything, His religion would 
138 


GOD 139 


not be so much Faith as Demonstration. Christ’s 
religion is called ‘‘our Holy Faith” because it is 
based on faith in God’s word. Without faith it is 
impossible to please God. In heaven we shall know 
God as He is. 

Pseudo-science from time to time claims to dis- 
prove the Scripture idea of God, but always these 
claims vanish into groundless speculation in due time. 
Not long ago Darwinism was the scientific discovery 
which was to sound the death-knell of Revelation; 
to-day, however, the foremost scientific authorities 
in the world declare that Darwinism has no scientific 
basis for its claims. Yet, in spite of this, many who 
were more ready to accept the gospel of man than that 
of God were led astray into irreligion by these false 
dogmas of so-called science. 

True science will never contradict Revelation be- 
cause God who is the author of Revelation is also the 
Creator of the world. His revealed word will never 
be at variance with His created works. By reverenc- 
ing His word, we shall one day see Him face to 
face. Then we shall know all. 


Non-Caruortic TESTIMONY 


“Evolution is not a new thing in philosophy, and 
such is the frailty of human nature that it is not 
likely to disappear suddenly from among men. The 
craze for the last half century is little more than a 


140 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


recrudescence of the philosophy which divided the 
opinion of men from the earliest ages. In both the 
Egyptian and East Indian mythology, the world and 
all things in it were evolved from an egg; and so in 
the Polynesian myths. But the Polynesians had to 
have a bird to lay the egg, and the Egyptians and 
the Brahmins had to have some sort of a deity to 
create theirs. The Greek philosophers struggled with 
the problem without coming to any more satisfactory 
conclusion.” 


George Frederick Wright, The Passing of Evo- 
lution, quoted in “Fundamentals,” VII. p. 18. 


“Tt is established that Darwinism cannot have 
originated any species.” 


Professor Vines in his presidential address to 
Linnean Society, May 24, 1902. 


“That matter 1s governed by mind, that the con- 
trivances and elaborations of the universe are the 
products of intelligence are propositions which are 
quite unshaken, whether we regard these contrivances 
as the result of a single momentary exercise of will 
or of a slow, consistent and regulated evolution. 

“The proofs of a pervading and developing intelli- 
gence, and the proofs of a co-ordinating and com- 
bining intelligence are both untouched, nor can any 
conceivable progress of science in this direction de- 
stroy them. If the famous suggestion that all animal 


GOD 141 


and vegetable life results from a single vital germ, 
and that all the different animals and plants now 
existent were developed by a natural process of evolu- 
tion from that germ, were a demonstrated truth, we — 
should still be able to point to the evidences of intelli- 
gence displayed in the measured and progressive 
development, in those exquisite forms so different 
from what blind chance could produce. Indeed, it is 
perhaps not too much to say that the more fully this 
conception of universal evolution is grasped, the 
more firmly a scientific doctrine of Providence will 
be established.” 
Lecky, History of The Rise and Influence of the 
Spirit of Rationalism wm Hurope, Vol. I, p. 
316. 


“The laws of nature are indeed the only things 
that we can establish with certainty; with regard to 
what underlies them there are many different opinions 
and we monists are not all agreed on the subject. 
Personally, I always maintain that if there are laws 
of nature, it is only logical to admit that there is a 
law-giver. But of this law-giver we can give no 
account and any attempt to give one would lead us 
into unfounded speculations.” 


Prof. Plate, Berlin Diseussion on Evolution, 
Feb. 18, 1907. 


“Tt is perhaps a step in advance only to come to 
the conclusien that the cause of life is exterior to 


142 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


the earth; that it is anterior to our world, just as are 
doubtless the laws of physics and chemistry, which 
govern the relations of matter and force throughout 
space.” 
Meunier, “Revue Scientifique,” A Study of 
Creation 


Vv 
MAN 


AN is the masterpiece of God’s visible 
creation,— the highest expression of God 
in the world. All creation mirrors the 

power and perfections of the Creator, but man was 
made to God’s image and likeness. Man is like unto 
God in that he has an immortal soul endowed with 
reason and free-will. 

An intelligent creator makes things for a purpose. 
God made man to serve Him in this life and thereby 
to become a partaker of the divine nature in eternal 
life. Man is not his own master,—he is not a law 
to himself. But if he wishes he may do his own will 
instead of God’s, for God made him physically free 
and will not force him. 

But he must. answer to God for the use of his 
free-will. If he does not use it to serve God, he will 
lose his soul. 

“For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the 
whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul ?”’ 
(Matt. xvi, 26). 


The end of man is therefore to serve God here and 
143 


144 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


to reign with God hereafter. This is the key to the 
problem of life. 

Man’s destiny does not end on this earth, but goes 
beyond. His soul came from God and must go back 
to God for judgment. Those who teach that man 
both body and mind came from the monkey have not 
a single scientific proof of their doctrine. They op- 
pose the fact of God’s word by a mere human theory 
now discarded by some of the greatest scientists. 

Scripture tells us that God made man to His own 
image and likeness (Wisdom, 11, 23). Everything 
else was made after a design, but man was made 
after the divine model. Of no other creature was 
it said that it was made to the image and like 
ness of God. It is the resemblance to God that 
gives man his dignity. Some prefer monkey an- 
cestry. If man is evolved body and mind from 
the monkey, he is simply a refined material being 
and as such not subject to a higher law. If man 
is altogether material, he is governed by physical 
laws which determine his actions and free him from 
responsibility. Conscience instead of being God’s 
monitor becomes only a myth. It follows that man 
may do as his passions dictate, and thus he becomes 
a slave to his body rather than its ruler. 

But God made man not to follow passion but 
reason. In the end passion if not ruled by reason 
will drive a man to ruin here and hereafter. Reason, 


MAN 145 


on the other hand, if guided by revelation will lead 
a man to companionship with God. 

Gregor Mendel, founder of ‘‘Mendelism, the 
science of genetics” who conducted more than ten. 
thousand experiments before formulating what is 
known and accepted by biologists as the Law of 
Mendel, and one of the foremost biologists of the 
world, declared that Darwinism has no scientific 
basis. 

Another famous scientist, in the true sense of the 
word, Erich Wasmann, whose works on science are 
found in every scientific library of the world, one of 
the greatest biologists of modern times, likewise 
states that Darwinism has no scientific foundation. 

The fact that these two great scientists are Catho- 
lics is proof that the Church and true science are not 
opposed. In our statements by non-Catholics which 
follow, it will be seen that the greatest non-Catholic 
scientific authority in the world fully concurs with 
Mendel and Wasmann. ‘This should settle the 
monkey theory. But as many believe what they 
prefer to believe, there will doubtless be many who 
will still adhere to the theory that man both body 
and mind is a descendant of the monkey and that con- 
sequently his destiny is the same as the monkey’s. 

But God has said: “. . . they that shall be 
accounted worthy of that world. . . . Neither can 
they die any more: for they are equal to the Angels, 


146 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


and are the children of God: . . .” (Luke xx, 35-6). 
That is the glorious destiny of man. 


Non-Catuotic TEsTiIMony 


“The only statement consistent with her dignity 
that science can make is to say that she knows nothing 
about the origin of man.” 

Quote from Reinke in Modern Biology, p. 480 
—Wasmann. 


“We should be greatly helped by some indication 
as to whether the origin of life has been single or 
multiple. Modern opinion is, perhaps, inclining to 
the multiple theory, but we have no real evidence.” 


Bateson, ‘Presidential address to British Asso- 
ciation.” 


“The recapitulation theory is chiefly conspicuous 
now as a skeleton on which to hang innumerable 
exceptions. It is mostly wrong; and what is right in 
it is mostly so covered up by the wrong part that few 
biologists longer have any confidence in discovering 
the right.” 


Kellogg, Darwinism To-day, pp. 18 and 21. 


“Some have even imagined that Natural Selection 
induces variability whereas it implies only the preser- 


MAN 147 


vations of such variations as arise and are beneficial 
to the being under its conditions of life.” 


Darwin, Origin of Species, Ed. VI, Vol. I p. 99. 


“1¢ must be certain from the very beginning of 
analysis that Natural Selection, as defined here, can 
only eliminate what cannot survive, what cannot 
stand the environment, in the broadest sense, but that 
Natural Selection is never able to create diversities.” 

Dreisch, Science and Philosophy of the 
Organism, Vol. I, p. 262. 


“Fleischmann has done, nevertheless, good service 
in recalling the fact that however probable the theory 
of evolution may appear, the evidence is indirect, and 
exact proof is still wanting.” 

Prof. Morgan, Hvolution and Adaptation, p. 57. 


“Far more eloquent than any amount of polemics 
is the fact that vertebrates for instance have already 
been proved to be descended from, firstly, the amphi- 
oxus; secondly, the annelids; therdly, the Sagitta 
type of worms; fourthly, from spiders; fifthly, from 
limulus; and sixthly, from echinoderm larvae. That 
is the extent of my acquaintance with the literature. 
Emis du Bois-Reymond said once that phylogeny of 
this sort is of about as much scientific value as are 
the pedigrees of the heroes of Homer, and I think 
we may fully endorse his opinion on this point.” 

Dreisch, Science and Philosophy of the Organ- 
usm, Vol. I, p. 256. 


VI 
THE FALL OF MAN 


OD created our first parents and placed them 
in Eden. He endowed them with sancti- 
fying grace accompanied by special gifts 

which were entirely above human nature. 

As their Maker, He was their Sovereign Lord. He 
exercised His dominion over them by issuing an order 
to them. As subjects they were obliged to respect 
that command. They used their free-will, however, 
to defy God. Satan tempted them saying that God 
was jealous of them and that the forbidden fruit 
would make them as God. But God had said that 
if they ate of the forbidden fruit, they should die. 
They disobeyed God and moreover believed Satan 
instead of God, adding insult to disobedience and 
disloyalty. 

God deprived them of supernatural gifts, banished 
them from Eden and sentenced them to labor and to 
die. We, as their descendants, share their fate,—we 
are born the children of parents who incurred the 
wrath of God. 

Original sin is the privation of sanctifying grace 
in consequence of Adam’s sin. It explains the misery 

148 


THE FALL OF MAN 149 


of man. Unless we admit the Fall of man, we face 
a greater mystery than the Fall, namely, the contra- 
dictory nature of man. There is rebellion in the 
best of us. Reason aims high, passion drags down. 
The spirit approves virtue, the flesh indulges in vice. 
Man is the only living creature in whom this internal 
conflict rages. Man rebelled against His Creator 
and now his own lower nature rebels against himself. 
This is a fact which outweighs a million theories. Its 
explanation is the Fall of man. We lost with our 
first ancestors the favor of God. 

But God is good. The sin of Adam was the occa- 
sion of manifesting the mercy of God. By the Re- 
demption of Christ, man may more than regain what 
he lost. 


Non-Catuortic TEstimMony 


“In giving the story of the Fall, the Bible is not 
concerned with the beginnings of Science, or the 
beginnings of Civilization, but with the beginnings 
of sin. Of all human origins, the origin of the bad 
conscience is the most fatal, and the knowledge of 
sin came to Adam and Eve, because of disobedience 
to God. His curse fell upon all concerned,—Adam, 
Eve, the serpent. 

“Man constituted for immortality lost that high 
destiny through disobedience toward God, and so 
became what we see man to be. 


150 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


“In the Fall of Adam there is recorded an explana- 
tion of all sin, and all the misery of mankind. This 
. first sin originated one continuous, self-propagating 
life of sin in the world. Man as he is, has two things 
in him: the wicked heart which he has inherited from 
Adam, and the law which God has given him as a 
guide to himself. 

“As by man came death, by man comes also the 
resurrection of the dead. 

“For, as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall 
all be made alive. Adam is the head of the old 
humanity which is mortal. Christ is the head of the 
new humanity, which, in spite of the mortality due 
to Adam, is destined at last to triumph over death. 
Those who believe in Christ, are of Him, and will 
share His triumph over death. 

“The Fall, therefore, means that first act of dis- 
obedience to God, and its consequences as related in 
Genesis iii.” 

James Denny, D.D., Prof. of Language, Litera- 
ture and Theology, United Free Church Col- 
lege, Glasgow. 


“To an outsider the separate dogmas of the Roman 
Catholic Church are no more difficult of acceptance 
than the dogmas she shares with Protestant sects. 
The fall, the atonement, the divinity of Christ, the 
Trinity, the clauses of the Apostles’ Creed, are larger 
and more exacting of belief than the authority of the 


THE FALL OF MAN 151 


Fathers, the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the 
infallibility of the Pope in matters of faith and 
morals. To an outsider the dogmatic Protestant 
seems to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.” 


H. D. Sedgwick, in the “Atlantic Monthly,” 
LXXXIV, p. 493. 


Vit 
REDEMPTION 


Y original sin man was deprived of sancti- 
fying grace and banished into a world of 
labor, cares and death; moreover he was 

reduced, more or less, to his merely natural state. In 
this state his passions asserted themselves, causing a 
continual conflict between right and wrong. 

Man was able to do good and avoid evil, but it was 
a struggle.* God in His mercy took pity on him and 
resolved not only to restore him to His friendship, 
but to elevate him to membership into the divine 
family. He was to do this by a manifestation of 
infinite love. He sent His only Begotten Son into 
the world who as God-man made infinite satisfaction 
to the Deity for the offense of man against the infinite 
majesty of the Godhead. 

God by means of the Redemption gave to man the 
power to become in a manner divine: “But as many 
as received him, he gave them power to be made the 
sons of God, . . .” (John i, 12). The birth of God 
as man is the birth of man to divinity. “By whom 
He hath given us most great and precious promises: 

* See Credentials of Christianity, by Martin J. Scott, S.J. 

152 


REDEMPTION 153 


that by these you may be made partakers of the 
divine nature: ...” (II Pet. 1, 4). 

It was to help man to avail himself of these 
promises that Christ established His Church. The. 
Church in turn sent her missionaries to all parts of 
the earth to bring these blessed promises to mankind. 
The love which Christ showed for man by His birth, 
life, passion and death engendered in man that won- 
derful love for Christ which explains the heroism and 
sacrifices of Christian Missionaries from the first 
ages of Christianity down to the present day. The 
zeal and heroism displayed by Catholic Missionaries 
to bring the Redemption into the lives of men is 
proof that the sacrifice of Calvary was a divine device 
for winning the love of man. 


Non-Catuouric TEstrmMony 


“The majority of the Christian Indians on this 
island are ministered to by the Roman Catholic 
Church. The work of this Church among the Indians 
of the dominion is part of the history of Canada. 
The story of the heroism of the Jesuit priests, who at 
daily and hourly risk of their lives, first brought the 
Gospel to the heathen tribes of North America, en- 
during, many of them, tortures and even martyrdom 
for the faith, forms one of the noblest and most 
thrilling chapters of our national history. To them 
belongs the honor of being the pioneers of Christianity 


154 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


to the native population of the country, and {i never 
read the accounts of these early days without thank- 
ing God for the splendid example of those saintly 
lives. At most of the places where we have stopped, 
the Roman Catholics,—all honor to them,—took up 
the work which we let fall, and are to this day (May, 
1916) maintaining it with their accustomed de- 
votion.”’ 


Austin Seriven, Protestant Bishop of Victoria, 
Baw: 


“General Gordon, a zealous Protestant, if ever 
there was one, found none but the Roman Catholics 
who came up to this ideal of the absolute self-devo- 
tion of the apostolic missionary. In China he found 
the Protestant missionaries with comfortable salaries 
of three hundred pounds a year, preferring to stay 
on the coast, while the Roman priests left Europe 
never to return, living in the interior with the natives, 
as the natives lived, without wife, or child, or salary, 
or comforts, or society. Hence priests succeed as 
they deserve to succeed, while the Protestant mis- 
sionary fails. True missionary work is necessarily 
heroic work, and heroic work can only be done by 
heroes. Men not cast in the heroic mold are only 
incumbrances,” 


Dr. Isaac Taylor, in the “F eh Review,” 
Oct., 1888, p. 450. 


VITL 
SALVATION 


OD so loved the world as to give His Only 
Begotten Son.* God wills not the death of 
the sinner, but that he should be converted 

and live. Redemption was provided for all, but 
each one must apply it to himself. St. Augustine | 
said ““God made man without his co-operation but He 
will not save him without his co-operation.” 

The Son of God became man in order that man 
might, in a measure, become divine; that is the 
meaning of salvation. “But as many as received 
him, he gave them power to be made the sons of 
God, . . .” (John i, 12). We receive Him by 
loving Him, but we must prove our love. Words will 
not. do,—deeds must speak. “If you love me: keep 
my commandments” (John xiv, 15). This implies 
service and at times struggle against evil. But in 
return Christ promises a share in His glory. “To 
him that shall overcome I will give to sit with me in 
my Throne: . . .” (Apoc. ili, 21). Therefore, sal- 

* See God and Myself, by Martin J. Scott, S.J. 

155 


156 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


vation requires our part as well as Christ’s. He has 
done His part, it remains for us to do ours. 

If we correspond to God’s will by leading a vir- 
tuous life, we have His guarantee of eternal life. 
“But they that shall be accounted worthy of that 
world, . . . Neither can they die any more: for they 
are equal to the Angels, and are the children of 
God: . . .” (Luke xx, 35-6). That is the glorious 
destiny of men as proclaimed by God, if we do our 
part. That is the meaning of salvation. In order to 
cooperate man must have faith in God and keep His 
Commandments. 

It is not easy to be good as we know from experi- 
ence. God who made us knows how we are consti- 
tuted, hence He established His religion to be a 
guide and a help to us. Religion will not necessarily 
make a man good, but will direct and help him to be 
good. Even with religion it requires effort to be 
virtuous; without religion virtue is barely possible. 

As Redemption and the Christian Religion are 
- based on the Incarnation, we shall briefly set forth 
this fundamental mystery of Christianity by which 
we may be made partakers of the divine nature. A 
right understanding of salvation will enable us to 
understand the heroic efforts of missionaries to bring 
Jesus Christ into the lives of those who knew Him 
not. None but a divine religion could inspire the 
self-sacrifice of the Catholic Missionary. 


SALVATION 157 


Non-Catuouic TEstrmMony 


“T believe our methods are not only unsuccessful, 
but altogether wrong. We must return to those 
methods which were crowned with such marvelous 
triumphs in the centuries which saw the conversion’ 
of the northern nations (by the Catholic Church). 
The modern method is to hire a class of professional 
missionaries, a mercenary army, which, like other 
mercenary armies, may be admirably disciplined, and 
may earn its pay, but it will never do the work of 
the real soldiers of the Cross. The hireling may be 
an excellent hireling, but for all that he is a hireling. 
If the work is to be done, we must have men influ- 
enced by the apostolic spirit, the spirit of St. Paul, of 
St. Columba, St. Columbanus and St. Xavier. 
These men brought whole nations to Christ, and such 
men only, if such men can be found, will reap the 
harvest of the heathen world. They must serve not 
for pay, but solely for the love of God.” 


Dr. Isaac Taylor, in the “Fortnightly Review,” 
Oct., 1888, p. 449. 


“By consolidating the heterogeneous and anarchi- 
cal elements that succeeded the downfall of the 
Roman Empire, by infusing into Christendom a bond 
of unity that is superior to the divisions of nation- 
hood, and a moral tie that is superior to force, by 
softening slavery into serfdom and preparing the 


158 CHRIST OR CHAOS 
way for the ultimate emancipation of labor, Catholi- 
cism laid the foundations of modern civilization.” 


Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the 
Spirit of Rationalism, II, p. 37. 


IX 
THE INCARNATION 


HE meaning of the Incarnation is that Ged, 

the Son, the Second Person of the Blessed 

Trinity, became Man. This does not mean 

that God ceased to be God, or that He was changed 

into man, but that He added man’s nature to His 

own divine nature; so that in the One Person, Jesus 

Christ, there are the two natures, human and 

divine, just as in man there are the two elements, 
body and soul, forming one person. 

As the bodily or animal actions of man, such as 
eating, sleeping, etc. are human actions, because 
they are the actions of a man, so the actions of Jesus 
Christ, who is God, are divine. Hence their divine 
worth. God is a spirit and invisible to mortal eye. 
Jesus Christ the God-Man was visible in His human 
nature. In all things except sin He was like unto 
us. He was born of the Virgin Mary and grew to 
maturity, but all the while He was divine. He be 


came man to elevate humanity to divinity, thus it is 
159 


160 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


through Him that we may become sharers in the 
glory of God. 

God, being a pure spirit, we can form no image of 
Him. We know Him as the First Cause, the Infinite, 
the Almighty. We can reverence Him as the great 
Creator of all things, but always He must as God be 
incomprehensible to us. Jesus Christ is the Divine 
Word: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt 
among us: . . .” (John i, 14). As a word is the 
external expression of the mind, so is Christ the 
visible expression of God. 

“For God so loved the world as to give his only 
begotten Son...” (John ii, 16). Jesus is, 
therefore, the visible expression of God’s love for us, 
—He is the visible manifestation of the goodness of 
God. In knowing and loving Jesus, we know and 
love God himself. God may seem to be far off; Jesus 
is before us. We can see Him, hear Him, follow 
Him. “I am the way, and the truth, and the 
hte hei Ce ohn soa vano ne 

“Come to me, all you that labor, and are bur- 
dened, and I will refresh you. Take up my yoke 
upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and 
humble of heart: . . .” (Matt. xi, 28-29). 

The Son of God by the Incarnation is one of us, 
He is our brother. Through Him we may look up to 
the Great, Infinite, Almighty God, and call Him 
Father. 


THE INCARNATION 161 


Non-Catruoric TESTIMONY 


“T like the Roman Catholic Church because it 
stands so immovably in its allegiance to Jesus Christ 
as very God. Dag of its leaders ever questions the 
deity of Jesus.’ 

Rev. Charles B. Mitchell, (Methodist), Chicago, 
April 6, 1914. 


“In the crypt is a calvary, and figures as large as 
life representing the burial of our Lord. The woman 
who showed us the crypt had her little girl with 
her; and she lifted up the child, about three years 
old, to kiss the feet of our Lord. Is this idolatry ? 
Nay, verily; it may be so, but need not be, and 
assuredly is in itself right and natural. I confess 
I rather envied the child. It is not idolatry to bend 
the knee, lip and heart to every thought and image 
of Him, our manifest God.” 


A. P. Stanley’s Lnfe of T. Arnold, p. 468. 


“Tt is said that the Catholic Church is gaining 
ground in France and Germany, and even in the 
United States. What wonder and why not? If the 
aspersions which have been put upon Christ and 
His Mother by some of our Protestant preachers and 
teachers are to be entertained without protest or with 
tacit approval, then Protestantism deserves to lose 
ground.” 

Dr. Mills, in the “Wheeling Register.” 


xX 
CATHOLIC DUTIES 


HE necessary duties of a Catholic are im- 
plied in these words of Our Lord: 

“But if thou wilt enter into life, keep 
the commandments” (Matt. xix, 17). And in these 
spoken to His Church: “He that heareth you, heareth 
MG Mi ene Lil ke coe eh i 

The necessary duty of a Catholic is to obey the 
Ten Commandments of God and the Six Command- 
ments of the Church. In reality the Six Command- 
ments of the Church are God’s; by Moses God gave 
mankind the Ten Commandments, by His Church 
He gave the Six Commandments. 

The Six Commandments of the Church are 
auxiliary commandments, that is they are aids to 
keeping the Ten Commandments. For instance, one 
of the Ten Commandments is: “Remember thou keep 
holy the Sabbath Day.” The first of the Six Com- 
mandments of the Church tells us how we are to 
keep the day holy, namely, by hearing Mass. An- 
other of the Ten is: “I am the Lord thy God, thou 
shalt not have strange gods before Me.” The 


Church’s Commandments direct us how to worship 
162 


CATHOLIC DUTIES 163 


and reverence God. They specify service and point 
out the way to give and maintain worship and service. 

As God spoke to the Israelites through Moses and 
gave the Decalogue through him, instead of directly 
to them, so He speaks in the New Law by His. 
Church: “He that heareth you, heareth me: . . .” 
(Luke x, 16). For this reason the Church Com- 
mandments have all the force of the Decalogue. 

These two sets of Commandments point out the 
way to life everlasting. Besides pointing out the 
way, the Church, by the Sacraments and devotional 
practices, gives substantial help to the Christian 
pilgrim on the road to eternity. Religion acts as a 
guide who directs and aids a traveler. One may 
refuse guidance and help, but at one’s peril. 

We shall now present the Decalogue and the Six 
Commandments of the Church which constitute the 
essential duty of a Catholic. 


Non-Catuouic TESTIMONY 


“The Protestant church owes all that is best in it 
to the Catholic Church. If I could destroy the 
Catholic Church tomorrow as easily as I could turn 
over my hand, I should not do so, for it has a great 
mission to perform, and it performs it as nthe Protes- 
tant church could not do.” 


Rey. A. M. Courtney, (Methodist), Chillicothe, 
Ohio. 


164 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


“There was a time when the dread of Catholicism 
lay with exceeding heaviness upon our Puritan 
minds; there was a time when the good American 
could but fear the dominating influence of the 
powers at Rome; but since then the world has 
moved apace, and we to-day who are in the midst of 
a struggle with materialism on every side can but 
realize in all seriousness the vast amount of good 
accomplished by this Church and its ideals. The 
Catholic churches of Greater New York stand in a 
united body,—an integral spiritual influence,— 
against the spirit of commercialism, the mad rush for 
riches in the seething maelstrom of ‘the street’? which 
is to-day sapping the foundation and draining the 
vitality of our spiritual life.” 


Dr. James E. Robbins, in the “Bangor News,” 
Oct. 28, 1904. 


“We are shocked at the destruction ef human life 
upon the banks of the Ganges, but here in the heart 
of Christendom foeticide and infanticide are exten- 
sively practiced under the most aggravating circum- 
stances. . . . It should be stated that believers in 
the Roman Catholic faith never resort to any such 
practices; the strictly American are almost alone 
guilty of such crimes.” 


““Harper’s Magazine,” 1869, p. 390. 


TX 
x 


XT 
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not have 
strange gods before Me. 

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy 
God in vain. 

Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath Day. 

Honor thy father and mother. 

Thou shalt not kill. 

Thou shalt not commit adultery. 

Thou shalt not steal. 

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy 
neighbor. 

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. 

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods. 


These Ten Commandments are called the Deca- 


logue. 


They make for the welfare of society and 


the individual. Those who observe these Command- 
meuts, whether they be nations or individuals, will 
be what God wants them to be. There is not one 
of these Commandments which a reasonable man 
would abolish. Suppose God allowed children to 
disrepect parents, or permitted murder, lying, steal- 
ing or adultery, could we reverence Him? 


165 


166 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


The Decalogue is virtually written on our heart; 
it is the voice of the Creator speaking to His creature, 
man, guiding him to everlasting welfare. 

As Ruler of the world, God issues to mankind His 
mandates. Citizens owe allegiance and service to 
government; they must obey the law, and give 
service when called upon. We, as subjects of the 
Creator and Ruler of mankind, owe allegiance and 
service to Him. The Decalogue is a copy of orders 
from the throne containing God’s will with regard 
toman. As God made us to His own image, free, we 
are not physically obliged to keep the Decalogue; but 
we are morally obliged, that is we must give an 
account of our free will to God, and of whether or 
not we have employed it in doing His will. He leaves 
us free to serve or disobey, but we must render an 
account of our stewardship. 

“But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the com- 
mandments” (Matt. xix, 17). 


Non-Catuortic Trstrmony 


“Tf a man nowadays preach the pure, unadul- 
terated word of God and preach it with effect, con- 
founding the unbeliever, startling the self-secure, 
exciting the indifferent, strengthening and confirm- 
ing the friends of Christ, the cry immediately is 
raised, this man is preaching Popery.” 

Homiletic, Liturgical Corr. Journal, No. 39. 


THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 167 


“This is not only a sign of an infidel society; it 
is also an upgrowth from the principles which form 
the evil side of Protestantism. There can be no 
doubt as to the genesis of this abomination. I quote 
the language of the Bishop (Protestant) of Maine: 
‘Laxity of opinion and teaching on the sacredness of 
the marriage bond, and on the question of divorce, 
originated among the Protestants of Continental 
Europe in the sixteenth century. It soon began to 
appear in the legislation of Protestant states on that 
continent, and nearly at the same time to affect the 
laws of New England. And from that time to the 
present it has proceeded from one degree to an- 
other in America, until the Christian conception of 
the nature and obligations of the marriage bond finds 
scarcely any recognition in legislation, or, as must 
be inferred, in the prevailing sentiments of the 
community.’ 

“This is a heresy born and bred of free thought 
as applied to religion; it is the outcome of the habit 
of interpreting the Bible according to man’s private 
judgment, rejecting ecclesiastical authority and 
Catholic tradition, and asserting our freedom to be- 
lieve whatever we choose, and to select what religion 
pleases us best.” 

Dr. Morgan Dix, Lectures on the Calling of a 
Christian Woman, p. 136. 


XIT 


THE SIX COMMANDMENTS OF THE 
CHURCH 


I To hear Mass on Sundays and holydays of 
obligation. 

II To fast and abstain on the days appointed. 

JII To confess at least once a year. 

IV To receive the Holy Eucharist during the 
Easter-time. 

V__ To contribute to the support of our pastors. 

VI Not to marry persons who are not Catholics, or 
who are related to us within the third degree 
of kindred, nor privately without witnesses, 
nor to solemnize marriage at forbidden times. 


The observance of the Ten Commandments is 
necessary for salvation; the Six Commandments of 
the Church supplement the Ten Commandments and 
help us to keep them. Either directly or indirectly 
they have a bearing on the Decalogue, which pro- 
claims our duty to God and our fellowman. 

The First of the Church Commandments concerns 
worship. The Second, Third and Fourth point out 
a practical way of living uprightly. The Fifth is 

168 


THE SIX COMMANDMENTS 169 


for the maintenance of religion, and the Sixth is for 
social and religious well-being. 

The Decalogue gives the great general orders of 
Almighty God to mankind. The details of their 
scope and observance are left to His ambassador on 
earth, the Church, which He established to represent 
Him among men. To the Church He revealed His 
mind while He was among men, instructing the 
Apostles in whatsoever concerned His kingdom on 
earth. Many things He commanded them to do and 
teach which are not found in the Bible. For in- 
stance, there is no mention in the Bible of Sunday, 
as the Lord’s Day. Yet all over the Christian world 
Sunday not the Sabbath (Saturday) is the day of 
worship. That was a fundamental change. The 
Church made it because as God’s representative she 
was empowered and directed to do so. 

In like manner, she knew God’s mind with regard 
to marriage and divorce and so-called race-suicide. 
In His name and by His authority she proclaims that 
divorce, with re-marriage, and that race-suicide are 
against the Commandments of God, and a violation 
of His Ordinance. “Thou shalt not kill,’ “Thou 
shalt not commit adultery’ are the headlines only of 
these two Commandments. Because the Command- 
ment only says “Thou shalt not kill” it does not 
mean that it is lawful to strike another, to mutilate 
another, to attempt to injure another bodily, or to 
destroy infant life in any manner whatever. So with 


170 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


regard to adultery. Because this Commandment 
limits itself to proclaiming that the marriage vow 
must not be violated, it does not follow that fornica- 
tion or any other*kind of lust is lawful. 

The Church with regard to the Commandments 
and Teaching of Christ resembles the Supreme Court 
with regard to the Constitution. But there is this 
difference, the Church is divinely guaranteed never 
to err in matters of faith and morals. Hence her 
Commandments have the binding force of the 
Decalogue. 


Non-Catuoztic TEstTrimMony 


“We are not half awake to the fact that by our 
laws of divorce and our toleration of the social evil 
we are doing more to corrupt the nation’s heart than 
Mormonism ten-fold.” 


Professor Austin Phelps in a Pamphlet issued 
by the New England Divorce Reform League. 


“The practical result of this facility of divorce is 
that in the New England states alone families are 
broken up at the rate of two thousand every year. 
And again note this: that while the laws protecting 
marriage have been gradually weakened, and facili- 
ties for divorce extended, crimes against chastity, 
morality and decency have been steadily increasing. 
In Massachusetts, from 1860 to 1870, during which 


THE SIX COMMANDMENTS 171 


time divorces have increased two and a half times, 
while marriages have increased hardly four per cent, 
and while all convictions for crime have increased 
hardly one fifth, those crimes known as being against 
‘chastity, morality and decency,’ filthy crimes, loath- 
some, infamous, nameless crimes, have increased 
three-fold. Looseness of legislation has encouraged 
looseness of living, and disproved the plea that sins 
against chastity will diminish if the law regulating 
marriage is made less strict. . . . 

“Another fact must be stated. From the total of 
marriages registered in the several states, those con- 
tracted and solemnized by Roman Catholics must be 
deducted, for they,—all honor to them!—allow no 
divorce a vinculo, following literally the command 
of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 


Dr. Morgan Dix, Lectures on the Calling of a 
Christian Woman, p. 128. 


XIII 
THE SACRAMENTS 


SACRAMENT is an outward sign in- 
stituted by Christ to give grace. The 
Sacraments were instituted by Christ as a 
means of giving His special aid for salvation and 
sanctification. A Sacrament gives grace in virtue 
of the merits of Christ. 

There are seven Sacraments: Baptism, Confirma- 
tion, Holy Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, 
Holy Orders and Matrimony. 

The Sacraments always give grace if we receive 
them with the right dispositions. God employs man 
to administer the Sacraments. As the decision of 
a-judge is valid regardless of his personal morality, 
so the Sacraments are valid regardless of the morality 
of the one who administers them. 

The Sacraments may be considered divine devices 
of communication between God and man. They are, 
as it were, a wire between heaven and earth for 
transmission of God’s grace to man. To illustrate: 
when one goes to confession, one confesses to God 


Himself and receives pardon from God himself; but 
172 | 





THE SACRAMENTS 173 


the transmission both of sin confessed and of pardon 
bestowed is through the priest, who in a sense is a 
wire between the penitent and God. When we use 
a telephone we are speaking not to the instrument, 
but to the person at the other end; in like manner, 
when we go to confession we approach God by His 
divinely appointed means of communicating with 
Him. So with regard to the other Sacraments; the 
one who administers them and the manner used are 
simply God’s means of conveying grace or of accom- 
phishing a purpose. 

It thus rests with each satth svelte to profit by 
these heavenly means of salvation and sanctification. 

The Sacraments require a visible organization for 
their administration, hence the Church of Christ. is 
a visible Church. God has so ordained. 


Non-Carnotic TEsrimony 


“The Catholic Church had a solemn ritual adapted 
to every part of human life. It met the new-born 
babe at its entrance into the world, washed from its 
brow the taint of hereditary evil, and placed those 
tender feet in the way of salvation. It blessed the 
marriage vow; ... it opened a listening ear for 
the confession of the penitent and gave him pardon; 
it gave in the Eucharist a present God as food for 
our soul; it brought to the sick-bed a sacred comfort, 


174 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


touched the forehead of the dying with the sign of 
safety; it laid the dead in a consecrated grave.” 
Rev. James F. Clarke, Boston, Mass. 


“Tf the Protestant worship lacks fulness in general, 
so when it is investigated in detail it will be found 
that the Protestant has too few sacraments, that 
indeed he has only one in which he is himself an 
actor, the Lord’s Supper; for Baptism he sees only 
when it is performed on others, and therefore derives 
no benefit from it. The sacraments are the highest 
in religion, the symbols to our outward sense of an 
extraordinary divine favor and grace... . 

“But all these spiritual wonders spring not like 
other fruits from the natural soil, where they can 
neither be sown nor planted nor cherished. We must 
supplicate for them from another region, a thing 
which cannot be done by all persons, nor at all times. 

. How is not this truly spiritual connection 
shattered to pieces in Protestantism! Since some 
of the above mentioned symbols are declared 
apocryphal, and only a few canonical; and how by 
their indifference to one of these will they prepare 
us for the high dignity of the other?’ 

Goethe’s Autobiography, translated by J. Oxen- 

ford, pp. 239-242. 


“In early Christian usage, the word ‘Sacramen- 
tum,’ though applied especially to Baptism, and the 


THE SACRAMENTS 175 


Eucharist, was widely used as the name of any sacred 
thing. In this sense of the word, washings, anoint- 
ings, and many other rites have sacramental aspect. 

“A mystery is defined as a rite which under some 
visible form is the cause of, and conveys to the soul - 
of a faithful man, the invisible grace of God in- 
stituted by our Lord through whom each of the faith- 
ful receives Divine grace. Mysteries were instituted 
to be badges of the true sons of God, sure signs of our 
faith, and indubitable remedies against sins. 

“Three things are necessary in a mystery: (a) its 
proper ‘matter,’ such as water in Baptism; (b) a 
properly ordained priest or bishop; (c) the invoca- 
tion of the holy spirit. 

“There are seven Mysteries or Sacraments: Bap- 
tism, Chrism, Holy Eucharist, Penitence, Priesthood, 
Honorable Marriage, Unction. 

“Baptism is administered by application of pure 
water, administered by an ordained priest, or in 
cases of necessity, by any Orthodox person. Those to 
be baptized must renounce the devil, and all his 
works, and confess the Nicene Creed. Infants must 
have Orthodox sponsors. 

“The fruits of Baptism are: The abolition of all 
sins previously contracted, original, and actual; re- 
generation or renewal, into a state of complete puri- 
fication and original justification. There is the 
conferring of the indelible character of Christ’s Body 
and immortality. 


176 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


“Chrism: The persons baptized are at once 
anointed with Chrism, which is oil, balsam and oint- 
ment consecrated by a bishop and applied by a priest 
on the brow, eyes, nostrils, mouth and ears, accom- 
panied by the words: ‘The seal of the gift of the Holy 
Spirit.’ 

“Holy Eucharist: The Holy Eucharist exceeds all 
the other mysteries or Sacraments. It can be cele- 
brated only by a lawful priest, and on an altar, or 
consecrated cloth. Leavened bread and pure wine 
mixed with water are used during the rite. At the 
time of consecration, the priest must intend that the 
substance of the bread and wine be changed into the 
substance of the true Body and Blood of Christ, by 
the operation of the Holy Spirit expressly invoked 
for this definite purpose. This invocation immedi- 
ately affects a change of substance apart from the 
use of the elements for communion; therefore only 
the forms of the bread and wine remain; ‘truly and 
in reality and in substance’ the bread and wine be- 
come the very Body and Blood of Christ. 

“In the mystery or ‘Sacrament’ Christ is really 
present, and it is right to worship and adore the 
Holy Eucharist, even as our Savior Himself. 

“The Eucharist is an unbloody sacrifice offered 
on behalf of the faithful, living and dead. The fruits 
of the sacrament are: remembrance of the passion 
and death of Christ; PE Aton for sins; defense 
against temptation. 


THE SACRAMENTS 177 


“Preparation for Communion consists of confes- 
sion, fasting, and reconciliation with all men. 

“Priesthood: Meaning (a) ‘spiritual,’ and shared 
by all believers; (b) Sacramental. The latter can 
be conferred only by bishops who have received ° 
authority for that purpose from the Apostles in un- 
broken succession. The “matter” of the Sacrament 
is the laying on of hands; the formula is the invoca- 
tion of the Holy Spirit. The episcopate is necessary 
to the very existence of the Church. He is the 
founder of all the mysteries, and the living image of 
God upon earth. He alone can ordain priests, and 
consecrate the Chrism. Priests can administer all 
the mysteries or ‘sacraments’ except Priesthood. 

“Penitence: Consists of oral confession to an 
orthodox priest who administers penance, and pro- 
nounces absolution. This sacrament is fruitless un- 
less the penitent is an Orthodox Christian, truly 
sorry for his sins, purposeful of amendment, and 
prepared to carry out the penance imposed. 

“Marriage: This ‘sacrament’ is in the first place 
celebrated by the mutual consent of a man and a 
woman, there being no impediment to the union. 
The Church does not consider this first consent a true 
sacrament unless the man and woman confirm their 
consent in the presence of a priest who witnesses 
their joining of hands, and hears their promise to 
remain faithful till death. 

“Unction: Instituted by Christ for the sick, and is 


178 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


administered only by a priest. He uses pure oil, and 
says a prayer setting forth its efficacy. This ‘unction’ 
is administered with a view to the recovery of the 
sick person. 
“The recipient must first have confessed to a 
priest.” 
Richard Godfrey Parsons, M.A., Oxford, Prin- 
cipal of Wells Theological College, in the 
Biblical Encyclopedia. 


XIV 
THE MASS 


HE Mass is the official and public act of 
worship in the Catholic Church. Christ 
wished to leave us a gift worthy to be 

offered to God Almighty. This offering He made 
in the Mass. The Mass is called the Holy Sac- 
rifice because in it an Object is sacrificed to God 
in acknowledgement that He is the Creator and 
Lord of all things. The sacrifice of Golgotha was 
the most sublime of all sacrifies. Christ’s life was 
not taken from Him, He offered it as a voluntary 
sacrifice: “Father, into thy hands I commend My 
spirit” (Luke xxiii, 46). 

At the Last Supper, the night before He died, 
Christ instituted the Eucharist and the Mass. By 
the same power by which He changed water into wine 
at Cana, He changed the bread into His Body and 
the wine into His blood. “This is my body,” He de 
clared, and “. . . this is my blood of the new Testa- 
ment which shall be shed for many unto remission 
of sins” (Matt. xxvi, 26-8). 

After saying these solemn words of consecration, 
and offering this unbloody oblation as a sacrifice, He 


commissioned His Apostles to do what He had done, 
179 


180 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


namely, to offer to God His body under the form of 
bread and His blood under that of wine: “. . . do 
this for a commemoration of Me” (Luke xxii, 19). 
Christ said: “. . . this is my blood of the new testa- 
ment.” He said this in contrast to the blood of the 
Old Testament. The Apostles, the best interpreters 
of Christ’s meaning, understood these words as 
a command empowering them to offer the Body 
and Blood of Christ as a sacrifice to God the 
Father. This is the sacrifice foretold by the Prophet: 
“|, . and in every place there is sacrifice, and there 
is offered to my name a clean offering . . .”’ (Malach. 
i, 11). That this clean oblation is the body of Christ 
we know from the mouth of the Apostle Paul “For 
he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and 
drinketh judgment to himself: not discerning the 
body of the Lord” (I Cor. xi, 29). 

The Mass, therefore, is the unbloody sacrifice of 
the body and blood of Christ. Every altar is a 
Calvary. When we assist at Mass, we are at the 
foot of the Cross. That is why the Mass is so sacred 
and our churches so holy. 

The Catholic Church is a place of sacrifice. Other 
religions have beautiful church edifices, but they are 
only places of prayer or preaching or assemblage. 
Catholics go to Church to be present at the sacrifice 
of Calvary; they may or may not hear a sermon, join 
in a service of song, or public prayer. Mere reveren- 
tial presence at Mass constitutes worship. 


THE MASS 181 


Presence at a funeral, without any words, conveys 
to a bereaved friend sympathy and devotion. So 
presence at Mass is the great and obligatory act of 
worship of a Catholic. Reverential presence is suffi- 
cient, but Catholics speak their hearts to Him who is — 
being mystically crucified. 


Non-Catuortic TEstrmony 


“The worshiper in the Protestant church must 
be made to feel, as the Catholic does at the Mass, that 
something is really being done. . . . It is significant 
that there has appeared in widely separated com- 
munions of Christians a craving and desire for the 
recovery of the Catholic heritage of Christianity. 
. . . Inexternals, they would restore ceremonial and 
a variety of Catholic customs and institutions. . . . 
These men are not visionaries or impractical idealists, 
In fact, it is simply the practical exigencies of re- 
ligion to-day which have driven them to accept the 
Catholic position. . . . The Reformation was largely 
political and economic in origin.” 


“The Living Church,” Jan. 27, 1923. 


“T am fully persuaded that we may as easily 
demonstrate the truth and necessity of the doctrine of 
a Sacrifice in the Eucharist as any other point now 
in dispute. . . . It was the chief design of those 
who have formerly set themselves to defend the 


182 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


Eucharistic Sacrifices to prove the thing itself, viz., 
that our Saviour instituted and the apostles and 
primitive Church believed and practiced this Sacri- 
fice; and I crave leave to say that there was no 
necessity for me or anyone else to take any further 
pains in this matter, for that our Saviour intended 
the Eucharist to be a Sacrifice, and that the primitive 
Church did so esteem it and use it was as clear as 
anything need be.” 


Johnson’s Works, The Unbloody Sacrifice, I, p. 
LG 


“Leaders in non-Conformist religious circles re- 
ceived the shock of their lives when it became known 
that ‘mass’ was celebrated in the leading Congrega- 
tional church in London yesterday and will be every 
morning this week. The amazement of religious 
leaders is increased by the fact that the church 
where this extraordinary innovation has been made 
is the historic King’s Weigh House in the heart of 
exclusive Mayfair. 

“Rev. W. E. Orchard, pastor of the church and 
celebrant of these masses, was not in his study yes- 
terday afternoon, but one of his church associates 
said: 

“Tt is quite true that mass was celebrated at our 
church. There is nothing irregular about that. The 
laws of the Congregational Church permit the pastor 
to hold whatever form of service members of the 


THE MASS 183 


church desire, and we expect to have mass or “festal 
celebration of the Eucharist’? the third Sunday of 
each month and every week day morning.’ 

“Rey. Mr. Orchard’s church is much more than 
fashionable. Founded in 1662, it is one of the 
strongholds of Congregationalists in London, and 
among those frequently seen at the services are 
former Premier Asquith, Margot Asquith, Mrs. 
Reginald McKenna, Margaret Bondfield, W. H. 
Massingham, C. F. G. Masterman and other notables 
from all walks of London Life.” 


“Boston Transcript,” Jan. 23, 1923. 


XV 
THE HOLY EUCHARIST 


HE Holy Eucharist is the Sacrament which 
contains the body and blood, soul and 
divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ under 

the appearances of bread and wine. It is both a 
Sacrifice and a Sacrament; as a sacrifice it is the 
divine Victim offered at Mass, as a sacrament it is 
the body and blood of Christ venerated on our altars 
and received in holy communion. 

By the Incarnation God united Himself to human- 
ity. By holy communion which is the receiving of 
the body and blood of Christ He unites Himself to 
the individual. It is obligatory on a Catholic to 
receive holy communion at least once a year. Very 
many receive every month, many every week, and 
not a few every day. It is impossible to receive 
holy communion frequently and worthily without 
saving the soul. Confession is necessary before holy 
communion only when one is conscious of mortal sin. 

If nothing defiled can enter heaven, God’s dwell- 
ing, is it not proper that, when He makes man’s heart 
His dwelling, we should banish from it everything 
that could offend Him? God is displeased by one 
thing only, sin. We may be poor, ill, dishonored, 
outcast, but if our heart is right we are dear to God. 

184 


THE HOLY EUCHARIST 185 


Not that we can make ourselves worthy of receiving 
Him ; we do not receive Him because we are worthy, 
but because He commands us. His delight is to be 
with the children of men, for He knows that there is, 
nothing which helps us so much to lead a life which 
will bring, us to Him eternally in heaven as His 
divine presence in our soul. 

If we prepare as best we can for the reception of 
holy communion, we are employing a means of sancti- 
fication which is the most efficacious on earth. Holy 
communion properly realized engenders in the soul 
that true love of God which makes all things in His 
service easy. Love of God is the special fruit of the 
worthy reception of the Eucharist. 

The Blessed Eucharist is the heart of Catholic life. 
Where devotion to It abounds, there virtue and peace 
reign. The altar is Its throne, the Church Its temple, 
the heart of man Its fondest resting place. By means 
of the Holy Eucharist man begins that association 
with divinity whose fruition he will enjoy forever in 
the celestial courts. 


Non-Catnotic TEstrmMony 


“The call goes out to us at this time for a new 
ardor and intensity in our defense of the Catholic 
faith. By this only may the world be saved from 
the bitter penalties of the errors into which it has 
fallen during the last five centuries. It is only 
Christ who can save through His church and her 


186 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


sacraments, and just in proportion as this church 
achieves unity and authority is her power increased 
in effectiveness and widened in its scope. 

“On every hand, in the most intimate relation- 
ships, this faith is now assailed with increasing 
arrogance and determination. There is no doctrine, 
no practice of the universal church that is not called 
in question with impunity. And there is one 
doctrine, one practice that meets each denial; the 
Catholic doctrine of holy mass, as communion and 
as sacrifice, the Catholic practice of reservation with 
all that follows therefrom. Here in one perfect 
synthesis are gathered up every conclusive argument 
against the multitudinous new-old heresies that now 
flourish, unchecked if not unrebuked. It is in fact a 
miracle of comprehensive refutation, for every neces- 
sary affirmation follows from it. 

“Until the Episcopal Church accepts and declares 
as essential to communion with herself, this Catholic 
doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament, and until her 
practice, including reservation for purposes of adora- — 
tion, is brought into conformity with this doctrine, I 
believe she will remain practically impotent before 
the denials and defiances of disloyalty.” 


Ralph Adams Oram, “Boston Herald,” Dee. 
19, 1923. 


“The unrivaled patristic scholar Pusey thus sum- 
marizes: ‘I have now gone through every writer who 


THE HOLY EUCHARIST 187 


in his extant works speaks of the Holy Eucharist, 
from the death of St. John to the Fourth General 
Council, A.D. 451. I have suppressed nothing. I 
have given every passage with context. There is no’ 
room here for any alleged corruption. All the 
earliest Fathers state the doctrine of the Real 
Presence,—all agree in one consentient exposition of 
our Lord’s words: “This is My body, this is My 
blood.’ The confessions of the Romish, Greek and 
earliest Protestant Church Confessions are here 
essentially one. And if this Consensus of Universal 
Christendom, this sure belief of all the Christian 
centuries, amounts to nothing in the exposition of so 
cardinal a doctrine of the Scriptures, what assur- 
ance can we have as to any Christian article? .. . 

“‘And Luther, who in his tremendous struggle with 
Rome felt compelled to assume so indifferent an 
attitude towards tradition, yet felt that the con- 
current testimony was too overwhelming, and so, 
speaking of the Real Presence, he gives this conclu- 
sion: ‘This article has been unanimously believed 
and held from the beginning of the Christian Church 
to the present hour, as may be shown from the writ- 
ings of the Fathers both in the Greek and Latin 
languages, which testimony of the entire Holy 
Christian Church ought to be sufficient for us, even 
if we had nothing more.’ ” 


The Real Presence, ““Homiletic Review,” June, 
1894, pp. 503, 504. 


XVI 
CONFESSION 


OD could forgive us our sins directly if He 

chose, in fact He does so when we turn to 

Him with a perfectly contrite heart. Such 

a heart implies the disposition of doing what God 

ordains. Ordinarily, God ordains that man obtain 

forgiveness of sin by confession. If confession is not 

possible, man may obtain forgiveness directly from 

God by sorrow for sin from a true love of God, and 

the purpose to sin no more. Where confession is 

possible, it is the means established by Christ for 
the forgiveness of sin. 

Unless confession was established by Christ, it 
never could have obtained a place in the church. No 
man would have presumed to inaugurate it. It 
binds pope, priest and people. Why God chose this 
means of dispensing pardon, we do not know. It is 
His institution, like Baptism and the Eucharist. 
By sin, man in his pride opposes God; by confession, 
his pride is humbled. | 

Sometimes one hears from non-Catholics the re- 


mark that man can not forgive sin, and that to con- 
188 


CONFESSION 189 


fess to a priest is to dishonor God. Such a view 
shows complete misconception of confession. God 
employs a priest to baptize, but that does not mean 
that the priest confers grace or blots out sin; God ° 
could confer the grace and forgiveness of Baptism 
directly if He so ordained, but He has willed to do 
so by the agency of man. So with regard to the 
Eucharist. It is a priest who consecrates the Blessed 
Eucharist and offers the Holy Sacrifice, but it is by 
the power and ordination of God that he does so. It 
is the same with confession,—the priest is only the 
instrument employed by God. When a car is set in 
motion by means of a trolley wire, it is not the wire 
that supplies the motion but the powerhouse. The 
wire is useless unless the power is turned on, and 
there is no power unless the wire connects it with the 
car. There is such a thing as wireless transmission 
of power, and there is also such a thing as God’s 
direct action on the soul; but the ordinary means 
appointed by God for forgiveness of sin is by con- 
fession to a duly ordained priest. 

God has His own reasons for this. It is not our 
affair to question why He employs sacraments, but 
to use them for our souls’ welfare, and to thank Him 
for establishing such an available means as confes- 
gion to regain His favor if we have lost it by sin. 
As it is God who is offended by sin, it belongs to Him 
to say how it is to be pardoned. 

Confession, moreover, brings man great comfort, 


190 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


peace and spiritual guidance and strength. Confes- 
sion is one of the most helpful institutions of Christ 
for the salvation and sanctification of souls. 


Non-Catnortic TESTIMONY 


“T could name more Fathers, as St. Augustine, St. 
Cyprian and others, but I spare. These I have 
named are enough to give testimony of the former 
generation; men too pious to be thought to speak 
blasphemy, and too ancient to be suspected of Popery. 
But to put all out of doubt, let’s search the Scrip- 
tures; look into the twentieth of St. John, v. 23. 
“‘Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto 
them; and whosesoever sins ye retain they are re 
tained.’ Here is plainly a power of remitting sins 
granted to the priest by our blessed Saviour. Nor 
can it be understood as remitting sins by preaching, 
as some expound it, nor by baptizing, as others 
guess, for both these, preach and baptize, they could 
do long before; but this power of remitting they 
received not till now, that is, after His Resurrection. 
That they could preach and baptize before is plain.” 


Sparrow’s Rationale, p. 313. 
“The power of remitting and retaining sins was 


given by our risen Lord in the upper room with closed 
doors on the evening of the day of the Resurrection. 


a 


CONFESSION 191 


In this way Jesus provided a remedy for the wounds 
which sin would leave on the souls of His redeemed.” 


Dr. Liddon, “Secret of Clerical Power,” in 
Clerical Life and Works, p. 159. 


XVII 
PURGATORY 


EAVEN is God’s home; there the Saints 

dwell, and the Angels, and the Blessed 

Mother of God. It is a place of peace, of 

joy, of holiness. In that realm of bliss and sanctity, 

there is no room for sin of any sort. Many of us 

depart from this life free of serious sin, yet stained 

by minor transgressions. Moreover, even after the 

guilt of sin is remitted, there remains its chastise- 

ment; and this chastisement must be undergone, 
either in this life or the next. 

Those who do penance here, or who bear patiently 
the ills of life, in atonement for sin, may thus satisfy 
the chastisement due to sin. But others may have to 
undergo hereafter this chastisement due to sin. 

Purgatory is that place where they are consigned 
for a time who die guilty of venial sins, or without 
having satisfied for the punishment due to their sins. 
Purgatory is a place of atonement, but it is also the 
home of faith, hope and love. The souls there de- 
tained are in the vestibule of heaven, only awaiting 
purification before entering the abode of the All- 
Holy God. 

192 


PURGATORY 193 


We may offer our prayers and good works to God 
for these holy souls. In the Apostles’ Creed we state 
our belief in the communion of saints; this is the 
union which exists among the blessed in heaven, the 
suffering souls in purgatory, and ourselves on earth. 
By God’s mercy we can extend our charity to our 
dear departed and help them sooner to see God face 
to face. 


Non-Catnoric TEstimony 


“¢ “What do you think, sir, of Purgatory, as believed 
by the Roman Catholics? Johnson: ‘Why, sir, it is 
a very harmless doctrine. They are of opinion that 
the generality of mankind are neither so obstinately 
wicked as to deserve everlasting punishment, nor so 
good as to merit being admitted into the society of 
blessed spirits; and therefore that God is graciously 
pleased to allow of a middle state, where they may be 
purified by certain degrees of suffering. You see, 
sir, there is nothing unreasonable in this.’ ” 

Boswell, Life of Johnson, I, p. 350. 


“T have lived my life, and that which I have done, 

May He within Himself make pure! but thou, 

If thou shouldst never see my face again, 

Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by 
prayer 

Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice 

Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 


194 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


For what are men better than sheep and goats 

That nourish a blind life within the brain, 

If knowing God they lift not hands in prayer, 

Both for themselves and those who call them friends ? 

For so the whole round earth is every way 

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.” 
Tennyson, Morte d’ Arthur. 


XVITI 
HEAVEN AND HELL 


NSTRUCTED by Christ, the Catholic Church 
teaches that after this life comes life everlast- 
ing. The grave is the door to eternity. 

Hell is a subject which most people hate to con- 
template. People do not like to think about death 
nor cancer nor diseases of any malignant kind. But 
that does not make these things any the less real. 
Some people put off making a will because it brings 
death too vividly before them, but death comes never- 
theless, and the failure to make provision for it only 
makes it all the worse. Some people think that hell 
is something introduced among mankind by the 
Catholic Church. The Catholic Church had nothing 
to do with it. It was Christ, the Son of God, who 
taught it in language so strong and clear that if we 
reject it we must reject Him. 

He told us of hell because it is a reality. A physi- 
cian who finds a patient has pneumonia does not 
thereby cause it, but only certifies to it. Hell is a 
reality and for that reason Christ warned us against 
it. It will not help us to refuse Him credence. 


Often one hears a person say: “I would be a 
195 


196 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


Catholic except for the doctrine of Hell.” That is 
the same as saying: “I would be a Catholic if the 
Church agreed with me.” The Catholic Church must 
be accepted whole and entire or rejected altogether. 
It cannot be partly true, and partly false, any more 
than God, whose guaranteed representative it is. 

Just a few reflections. If there is no hell, why 
the Crucifixion? If no hell, why the martyrs? If 
no hell, why did Christ say: ‘‘For what doth it profit 
a man, if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss 
of his own soul?’ (Matt. xvi, 26) If no hell, why 
did Christ say: “Every one therefore that shall 
confess me before men, I will confess before my 
Father who is in heaven: But he that shall deny 
me before men, I will also deny him before my 
Father who is in heaven” (Matt. x, 32-3). 

The life and mission of Christ are meaningless 
unless there is a hell. Why did He come except to 
save us from sin and hell? Why did He command 
His followers to lose everything, even life itself, 
rather than commit sin, unless the penalty of sin is 
what He disclosed? Hell is as disagreeable to Catho- 
lics as to others. So is small-pox. But the person 
who takes due precaution against small-pox is wise, 
not he who denies there is such a dread disease. As 
well reject a physician who certifies to small-pox, as 
the Church which certifies to Hell; for it is on the 
word of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that His 
Church proclaims this doctrine. 


HEAVEN AND HELL 197 


Eternity may be either happy or miserable. Two 
roads lead to life beyond the grave, the broad road 
of self-will and the narrow road of God’s will. Peo- 
ple who choose to be a law to themselves are on the 
way to eternal death, while they who make God’s will 
the rule of their conduct are on the way to eternal 
life. Every one is on either of these two roads. 

The road of self-will makes a man a worshiper of 
himself, he is his own god. The road of God’s will 
acknowledges the Lord as God. Only they who have 
the Lord as God in life will be His in eternity. They 
who ignore God in life will be rejected by Him in 
eternity, and obliged to serve Satan in hell forever. 
“He that is not with me, is against me: . . .” (Matt. 
xii, 30), saith the Lord. But they who follow Christ, 
the King, in life, will be the children of God in 
heaven for all eternity. 


Non-Catruontic TErstrmony 


“Yet the argument that there is no hell, because 
it is inconsistent with the character of a good, kind 
God to have such a thing in His universe, is as 
illogical as to deny the existence of this world, filled 
with sorrow, injustice, oppression, sickness, pain 
and death, because God is love. . . . Men sin while 
in the flesh because they will be wicked. Their spirits 
will be eternally in the sorrows of hell because of 


198 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


their selfishness. Men bemoan the effects of their 
sins, but go on sinning.” 


GrorcE Freperick Wricut, The Logic of 
Christian Evidence. 


“T shall endeavor to show that if the Christian 
religion holds its own at all in the face of secular 
knowledge, it is the Christian religion as embodied 
in the Church of Rome, and not in any form of Prot- 
estantism, that will survive in the intellectual con- 
test. I shall endeavor to show also that the outlines 
of the great apologia which Rome as champion of 
revelation will offer to the human intellect, instead 
of being wrapped in mystery, are for those who have 
eyes to see, day by day becoming clearer and more 
comprehensive, and that all those forces of science 
which it was once thought would be fatal to her, are 
now in a way which constitutes one of the great sur- 
prises of history, so grouping themselves, as to afford 
her a new foundation... . 

“In exact proportion as Protestantism exhibits its 
inability to vindicate for herself, either in theory or 
in practice, any teaching authority which is really 
an authority at all, the perfection of the Roman sys- 
tem theoretically and practically alike becomes, in 
this particular respect, more and more striking and 
obvious. .. . In this way it is then that modern 
historical criticism is working to establish, so far as 
intellectual consistency is concerned, the Roman 


HEAVEN AND HELL 199 


theory of Christianity, and to destroy the theory of 
Protestantism, for it shows that Christian doctrine 
can neither be defined nor verified except by an au-- 
thority which, as both logic and experience prove, 
Rome alone can with any plausibility claim.” 


Witit1aM Horrett Mattock, in the “Nine 
teenth Century,” XLVI, pp. 675, 753. 


XIX 
DEVOTIONAL PRACTICES 


the Catholic Church there are many devotions. 

Some suit one person, some another. Different 

nations have special devotions which appeal to 
them and help them.* ‘These same devotions might 
not appeal at all to other nations or people. The 
various devotional practices are optional, to be em- 
ployed for the spiritual comfort and progress of those 
who benefit by them. 

One may be a good Catholic by doing only what 
is of obligation, but, as a rule, Catholics find that 
devotional practices help them greatly in observing — 
God’s law. One could be a good citizen by keeping 
the laws, but experience teaches that those who keep 
the laws aim at more than keeping out of the clutches 
of the law. What patriotism is in a citizen, devotion 
is in a Catholic. The best patriots are not however 
always parading their loyalty, but maintain it by 
various ways known to themselves only. So a Catho- 
lic may be very devout without any exterior demon- 
stration. 

There are, however, certain devotions which from 


their nature distinguish practical Catholics. We 
*See The Hand of God by Martin J. Scott, S. J. 
200 


DEVOTIONAL PRACTICES 201 


may mention devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, to 
the Passion of Our Lord, and to the Mother of God. 
These are major devotions calculated to keep man 
in communication with the world beyond, thus help-’ 
ing him on his way to his eternal reward. Most peo- 
ple are apt to be preoccupied with the material in- 
terests of life. Anything which tends to center the 
mind and aspirations on the things of the spirit is 
bound to be helpful to holiness. The purpose of the 
various devotions of the Church is to keep man in 
touch with God. Scripture says: . . . ‘with desola- 
tion is all the land made desolate: because there is 
none that considereth in the heart’ (Jer. xii, 11). 
Devotions help one to think on the main issue of life. 
By keeping before us the great. supernatural truths 
of eternity, they aid in inducing us to live in such 
a manner that our recompense will be admittance 
into the heavenly home prepared by God for those 
who in life show their love for Him, not by words 
but by deeds. 

“Tf you love me: keep my commandments” (John 
xiv, 15). That is the test. 

Devotions help us to see God in the world and to 
live for His approval. 


Non-Catuonric TErstrMony 


“For layman as well as for priests, The Roman 
Catholic Church provides places of retreat; places 
of dignified and spiritual symbolism, to which the 


202 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


spiritually exhausted man may retire for a period 
of fasting and prayer, to cleanse and call home his 
spirit and prepare himself to serve again his God 
in the material world. Something of this sort is 
obviously necessary for us all as a beginning, and 
from this each soul must build up for itself, with 
its highest skill and will-power, a method of cleansing 
and purification which shall make possible a true 
communion with God. 

“Such a method of developing and feeding the 
spiritual body seems to me to be the cure for that 
disease of the soul from which I and many of my 
fellow men are suffering. It will, I think, cure the 
spiritual madness which I tried at the beginning to 
describe, and may enable us to save our tottering 
civilization by regaining control of the great scien- 
tific, mechanical, and industrial processes which have 
deprived us of liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and, 
almost, of life itself.” 


Puitie Casot, in the “Atlantic Monthly,” Au- 
gust, 1923. 


“But rich as she is in persons, she is richer in 
truth; her worship is a great deep. Hidden sancti- 
ties and meanings surround man; the sacramental 
principle invests the simplest things, acts and rites 
with an awful yet blissful significance; turns all 
worship into a divine parable, which speaks the deep 
things of God, now into a medium of His gracious 


DEVOTIONAL PRACTICES 203 


and consolatory approach to men, and man’s awed 
and contrite, hopeful and prevailing approach to 
Him. Symbols are deeper than words; speak when 
words become silent; gain where words lose in mean- 
ing; and so in hours of holiest worship the Church 
teaches, by symbols, truths language may not utter.” 


Pror,. A. M. Farrparrn, Catholicism, Roman and 
Anglican, pp. 152-154. 


“TY used to feel that it was mere idolatry, or ab- 
sence of refined mentality, that led the Spanish or 
Italian peasant to kneel before the image of the 
Virgin Mother. A deeper appreciation of the aspira- 
tions of the human soul has removed that feeling 
from my mind. When I see an ignorant worshiper 
kneeling in prayerful attitude, I come to the conclu- 
sion that there is the evidence of divine aspiration. 
. . . It has been through the innumerable repre- 
sentations of the Madonna, as brought out in the 
common forms, as well as in the masterpieces of 
creative art, that religion has received in many lands 
its most stimulating influence.” 


Carrouti D. Wrieut, in “Munsey’s Magazine,” 
XVII, p. 564. 


XX 
THE MOTHER OF GOD 


OD, as God, had no beginning. He always 
existed. Jesus Christ, the God-Man, had 
a beginning. God in assuming human 
nature might have come a mature man, by special 
ereation, without submitting to birth, infancy and 
youth. But He saw fit to become man as a child 
of Adam, to be born of woman. The Virgin Mary 
was created by God for the exalted dignity of Mother 
of Jesus Christ, the only Begotten Son of God. As 
Jesus Christ is truly God, and as Mary is the Mother 
of Jesus Christ, she is the Mother of God in His 
human generation. Mary’s dignity is greater than 
that of the highest angel in heaven. The angels are 
the messengers of God, His administering spirits. 
Mary is the Mother of God; the blood which Christ 
shed on Calvary was drawn from her veins; she is 
the Holy Grail that held our Redemption; she is 
closer to God than Cherubim and Seraphim. There 
is no supernatural perfection possible to a human 
creature which Almighty God has not bestowed on 
the Mother of His Divine Son. 
It was fitting that she who was to give Him His 


body should herself never be stained by the sin of 
|204 : 


F 





, 


THE MOTHER OF GOD 205 


Adam. This preservation from original sin is her 
Immaculate Conception. Born of human parents, 
in the natural way, she was by the foreseen merits _ 
of her Divine Son, free, from her very conception, 
from the slightest shadow of sin. 

But although Mary is the masterpiece of God’s 
creation, she is infinitely inferior to God. Though 
she is Queen of heaven and enthroned above Seraphim 
and Cherubim, she is nevertheless but a creature. 
All that she is and all that she has is God’s gift to 
her. Between Creator and the most perfect creature 
there is an unmeasurable difference. Were Mary 
ten billion times more exalted than she is, she would 
still be a creature and as such infinitely below the 
Creator. But in choosing her to be the Mother of 
His Only Son, made man, God conferred on Mary 
a dignity greater than on all the rest of creation. In 
choosing her as the Mother of the God-Man, He 
honored her more than all creation combined could 
honor her. 

When, therefore, we honor Mary, it is because God 
sets us the example; no honor we may pay her can 
approach to that which He has conferred upon her. 

The Church after God’s example honors Mary. 
But the honor thus rendered is not worship but ven- 
eration. We worship God only. We venerate the 
Saints, and Mary Queen of Saints because in so 
doing we are honoring God in them, for their triumph 
was the result of their fidelity to His Grace. God 


206 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


gave us His Only Son through Mary. She is the 
easy approach to-Him. We may go direct to God 
if we wish, but in going with her and through her 
we are honoring her whom the King wishes to honor. 
Whatever we may obtain by ourselves we may more 
surely obtain through Mary. As it is through the 
Sacraments, instead of directly that God ordinarily 
confers grace; so does He bestow many of His favors 
indirectly by the intercession of His friends, the 
Saints, and especially by their Queen, His Mother. 
Hence we find her an easy approach to her Son and 
in our difficulties say to her: “Holy Mary, Mother 
of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of 
our death, Amen.” 


Non-Catuortic Testimony 


“The world is governed by its ideals; and seldom 
or never has there been one which has exercised a 
more profound and, on the whole, a more salutary 
influence than the medieval conception of the Virgin. 
. . . All that was best in Europe clustered around 
it, and it is the origin of many of the purest elements 
of our civilization.” 


Lucky, History of the Rise and Influence of the 
Spurt of Rationalism in Europe, Chap. ITI, 
p. 234. 


“The practice of the invocation of saints seems to 
many to complicate the whole relation of the soul to 


THE MOTHER OF GOD 207 


God, to be introducing a number of new and unneces- 
sary go-betweens, and to make it, as it were, com- 
munication with God through a dragoman. But the ° 
case is really very different. Of course it may be 
contended that intercessory prayer, or that prayer 
of any kind, is an absurdity; but for those who do 
not think this, there can be nothing to object to in 
the invocation of saints. It is admitted by such men 
that we were not wrong in asking the living to pray 
for us; surely therefore it is not wrong to make a 
like request of the dead.” 


Witt1aM Horrett Matzocr, Is Life Worth 
Inving? p. 296. 


“Ave Maria! thou whose name 
All but adoring love can claim, 
Yet may we reach thy shrine; 

For He thy Son and Saviour, vows 
To crown all lowly, lofty brows 
With love and joy like thine.” 


Joun Kesue, The Christian Year, “The An- 
nunciation,” p. 198. 


“Mother, whose virgin bosom was uncrost 
With the least thought to sin allied; 
Woman above all women glorified, 

Our tainted nature’s solitary boast; 
Purer than foam on central ocean tost.”’ 


WorpswortuH’s Works, IV, p. 114. 


XXT 
HONORING GOD'S MOTHER 


Y honoring heroes we are imperceptibly 
schooled in heroism. Our country holds 
up her glorious sons to our gaze with the 

hope that we may, like them, be loyal to her and reflect 
credit on her. Hence she erects monuments to them, 
engraves their likeness on the currency, and sets aside 
special days to celebrate their virtues. In honoring 
our nation’s distinguished men and women, we are 
glorifying our country, for which they lived, sacri- 
ficed and in many cases died. 

The best way to foster patriotism is to honor our 
patriots. Our government does not consider that 
they who honor Washington, Lincoln or Roosevelt 
detract from the honor due itself. On the contrary 
it encourages celebrations in honor of its heroes. 

The Saints are the heroes of the Kingdom of 
Christ. Mary, as Queen of the Saints, and Mother 
of God, is the most exalted heroine of heaven and 
earth. God wants us to honor her because we can- 
not do so without becoming dearer to Him. We are 
imperceptibly fashioned by our ideals; if Mary is 

208 


HONORING GOD’S MOTHER 209 


in our thoughts and prayers, she will mold our lives 
into a form pleasing to her Divine Son. 

Mary is, next to Jesus, the crown of creation, , 
“our tainted nature’s solitary boast.” From her 
Christ received His Sacred Body, that body which 
He gives to us in the Holy Eucharist, and the blood 
which He shed for our Redemption. The Angel of 
the Annunciation, God’s messenger, declared her 
Blessed among women. She herself, inspired by the 
Holy. Ghost, prophesied: . . . “henceforth all gen- 
erations shall call me blessed” (Luke i, 48). Just 
as we honor an artist in honoring his work, so when 
we honor Mary do we honor God. She is the master- 
piece of God’s Almighty Wisdom and Power. 

Christ worked His first miracle at Mary’s request. 
She has that power with God which a mother has 
with a son. Hence we go to her in our needs. Not 
that we may not go directly to God, but as we re- 
ceived Christ through her, so may we receive His 
blessings and favors through her. Christ might have 
come directly to us, without a Mother, but He chose 
to come to us through Mary. Surely we may ap- 
proach Him through her. And we do, to His glory 
and her honor and our own good. 


Non-Catuortic TESTIMONY 


“The saints too are hers, and the man she receives 
joins their communion, enjoys their godly fellowship, 


210 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


feels their influence, participates in their merits and 
the blessings they distribute. Their earthly life made 
the past of the Church illustrious, their heavenly 
activity binds the visible and the invisible into unity, 
and lifts time into eternity. To honor the saints is 
to honor sanctity; the Church which teaches man to 
love the holy, helps him to love holiness. And the 
Fathers are hers; their laborings, sufferings, martyr- 
doms, were for her sake; she treasures their words 
and their works; her sons alone are able to say: 
Athanasius and Chrysostom, Thomas Aquinas and 
Duns Scotus, Cyprian and Augustine, Anselm and 
Bernard are ours; their wealth is our inheritance, 
at their feet we learn filial reverence and divine 
wisdom.” 


Pror. A. M. Farrparrn, Catholicism, Roman 
and Anglican, p. 153. 


“This is indeed the Blessed Mary’s land, 

Virgin and Mother of our dear Redeemer; 

All hearts are touched and softened at her name; 
Alike the bandit with the bloody hand, 

The priest, the prince, the scholar and the peasant, 
The man of deeds, the visionary dreamer, 

Pay homage to her as one ever present ; 

And even as children who have much offended 

A too indulgent father, in great shame, 

Penitent, yet not daring unattended 

To go into his presence, at the gate 


HONORING GOD’S MOTHER 211 


Speak with their sister, and confiding wait 

Till she goes in before and intercedes ; 

So men, repenting of their evil deeds, 

And yet not venturing rashly to draw near 
With their requests an angry father’s ear, 
Offer to her their prayers and their confession. 
And she for them in heaven makes intercession. 
And if our faith had given us nothing more 
Than this Example of all Womanhood, 

So mild, so merciful, so strong, so good, 

So patient, peaceful, loyal, loving, pure, 

This were enough to prove it higher and truer, 
Than all the creeds the world had known before.” 


LoneFreLttow, Collected Poems (Cambridge 
Edition), “The Golden Legend,” p. 453. 


XXIT 
THE POPE 


HE Pope is the visible head of the Church. 

As Matthias was designated by the Holy 

Ghost to be the successor of Judas in the 
Apostolate, so is the Pope designated by the Holy 
Ghost to be the successor of St. Peter. 

God’s will in the case of Matthias was made known 
by the casting of lots, and in the case of the Pope it 
is manifested by ballot. Once elected the Pope is 
the personal representative of Christ in the Kingdom 
of God on earth. 

St. Peter had his faults, nevertheless he was 
clothed with Christ’s authority to rule over the 
Church; so may the Pope have his faults, but not- 
withstanding, he takes the place of Christ as visible 
head of the Church. 

Christ commissioned His Church to preach the 
gospel to the whole world. Destined therefore to 
be a world-wide organization, her mission required 
teachers and a body of truths. Christ delivered to 
her His teaching, placing a sacred deposit in her 
keeping, which was the message she was to convey 


to all nations. Her missionaries were to carry this 
212 


THE POPE 213 


message to the uttermost parts of the earth. Thus 
the Church of Christ is necessarily a vast organiza- 
tion, greater than any government of the ancient or 

modern world. | 

We cannot conceive of a government without a 
head. How, therefore, can we contemplate the most 
extensive government in the world without a head ? 
It may be answered that Christ’s is a spiritual king- 
dom and that He is its invisible Head. But the 
men who preach and administer the sacraments are 
real visible human beings who require visible gov- 
ernment, and the truths taught are substantial mes- 
sages contained in real documents or tradition. 

All these things constitute a visible Church, and 
demand a visible Head. There was no idea of an 
invisible Church until the break with the established 
Christian Church of 1500 years made it imperative 
to acknowledge that Church or to find a pretext for 
separating from it. Then the idea of the invisible 
church sprang into being as a justification of a new 
religion which had no unity and no head, nor could 
have. Since then the churches born of the Reforma- 
tion have been changing and drifting and breaking 
up until it has come to such a pass that they them- 
selves deplore their pitiable condition. They have 
no definite teaching, no authoritative ruling, no 
religious unity. 

Can we imagine Christ as the Head of such a 
jumble of contradiction? By contrast see the real 


214 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


Church of Christ, teaching the very same truths 
everywhere and always, her Bishops and Priests all 
over the world united in close bonds with her Head, 
the Pope, and exhibiting before the astonished world 
a miracle of unity in government, doctrine and 
loyalty. Every church in the world but the Catholie 
is local or national, she alone is universal; she alone 
has adherents in every quarter of the globe and among 
every nation who obeys her authoritative voice as that 
of God. The other churches, even with government 
aid, cannot exercise authoritative control; having 
no head, they split into factions and divisions each 
going its own way, until it in turn splits, thus giving 
the world the sad spectacle of a divided and contra- 
dictory religion calling itself Christian. Christ’s 
seal was unity. No church can be His which is not 
marked by that seal: 

“That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in 
me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: 
that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” 
(John xvii, 21). 

Christ Himself appointed the first Pope and made 
him an essential part of His Church. No Church 
is Christ’s which has not the Pope as its Head. 


Non-Catuotic Trstimony 


“The Papacy is one of the greatest institutions 
that have ever existed in the world; it is much the 
greatest thing now existing, and looks forward with 


THE POPE 215 


calm assurance to a still greater future. Its dominion 
extends throughout the world over the only ecumen- 
ical church. All other churches are national or . 
provincial in their organization. It reaches back in 
unbroken succession through more than eighteen cen- 
turies to St. Peter, appointed by the Saviour of the 
world to be the Primate of the Apostles.” 


Dr. Cuartes A. Bricas, The Real and Ideal 
wm the Papacy, in “North American Review.” 


“The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, 
when compared with the line of Supreme Pontiffs. 
That line we trace back in an unbroken series, from 
the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth 
century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth ; 
and far beyond the time of Pepin, the august dynasty 
extends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable. The 
republic of Venice came next in antiquity, but the 
republic of Venice was modern when compared with 
the Papacy, and the republic of Venice is gone, and 
the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains, not in 
decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and youth- 
ful vigor.” 

Macavtay’s Hssays, on Ranke’s History of the 
Popes, III, p. 303. 


“Instead of one Pope, the Protestants were op- 
pressed by a number, each of the princes ascribing 
that authority to himself.” 

Menzx., History of Germany, II, p. 288. 


216 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


“Now we are face to face in Western and Mis- 
sionary Christendom with facts that, I think, all 
must confess, are utterly inconsistent with St. Paul’s 
ideal and with the prayer of Christ—endless di- 
visions and mutual excommunication of baptized be- 
lievers. I know there is an underlying unity, and 
I rejoice to know it. But to the world the char- 
acteristic feature of modern Christianity is its 
divisions, and they bring the Church into a con- 
tempt it deserves, and they deprive it of half its 
influence. It is no wonder that some are thrown off 
their balance by the shame of these divisions, and 
take refuge in a communion which (whatever other 
failings may be ascribed to it) does stand for a unity 
that the world can see. Unity—a real unity that 
the world can see—is, as we say, ‘in the air.’ It is 
thirteen years since a letter, known to many of us, 
was sent to ministers of all the Christian communi- 
ties in England declaring that the signatories were 
agreed in believing ‘that our Lord Jesus Christ meant 
us to be one in a visible fellow-ship; that our existing 
divisions hinder and even paralyze His work; that 
we all deserve chastisement and need penitence for 
the various ways in which we have contributed to 
produce or promote divisions; that we all need open 
and candid minds and more light, so that we may be 
led back towards unity.’ I say, therefore, that Chris- 
tian reunion is ‘in the air.’ What we have got to 


THE POPE 217 


‘do now is to see if we can bring it down to earth. 
How can that be done?’ 
Bispop Rotiestone Sterritr Fyrrs, of Ran- 
goon, in his opening address to the Diocesan 
Council on July 23, 1918. 


“The whole Elbe could not supply water enough 
to bewail the dissensions of the Reformation. They 
doubt with regard to the most momentous doctrines. 
The evil is incurable.” 

Merranctuon, Letter I. 


“Tt is of no little moment that the dissensions 
which have arisen among us should remain unsus- 
pected by posterity. or it is truly ridiculous that 
after opposing ourselves to the entire world, we 
should at the very commencement differ among our- 
selves.” 


Carvin, Letter to Melancthon, p. 108. 


XXIIT 
THE BIBLE 


A QHE Catholic Church existed before the Bible. 
It was she who gave the Bible to the world. 
This sacred book is her compilation. 

The New Testament was not even thought of when 
the Church was established. Not a line of it was 
written for years after, and all of it was not compiled 
until several centuries after the Church was founded 
and flourishing. 

Christ quoted from the writings of Moses, David, 
and the Prophets. In so quoting He appealed to 
them as God’s word. The Church assembled what 
were considered the sacred writings of the Jews, 
joined them with the writings of the Apostles and 
Evangelists and by her divine authority pronounced 
the combined work, the Bible, to be the word of God. 
Without the Church there would have been no Bible. 
The Church of Christ does not depend on the Bible, 
but the Bible does depend on the Church. 

There is a prevalent notion in some quarters that 
somehow the Bible made itself, or dropped from the 


sky, or was in some manner given to mankind from 
218 


THE BIBLE 219 


above. The Bible was not in existence in the time 
of Christ nor for some centuries afterwards. The 
Church had been founded, thoroughly organized, and . 
was teaching authoritatively long before the Bible 
came into existence. 

If there had been no sacred writings whatever the 
Church would be as she is to-day, a divine institu- 
tion. But if there had been no divine Church there 
had been no Bible. Christ did not write a line for 
posterity. He gave us a Church, not a book. 

The Church of Christ, which gave us the Bible, 
declares that it is inspired. The two main things 
about the Bible are its contents and its inspiration. 
The Church is the sole guarantee of both. Out of 
the many writings of the Hebrews she determined 
which were Scripture, and out of the many early 
Christian writings she determined which were Apos- 
tolic. Her selection, therefore, gave us the contents 
of the Bible. By the Authority given her by Christ, 
she declared the Bible to be inspired. 

The Church which gave us the Bible means by its 
inspiration that what the original writers wrote in 
the original documents was the word of God. She 
does not state in what sense the original statements 
are to be taken, literal, figurative or symbolic. Just 
as the Supreme Court interprets the Constitution 
when it is called into question, so does God’s divinely 
guided Church interpret His inspired Word when 
necessity demands. 


220 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


The Church has made few pronouncements on par- 
ticular passages.of Scripture. In cases where she 
has not defined the meaning we are free to take our 
own. St. Augustine 1500 years ago wrote a treatise 
on. the meaning of the Six Days of Creation, main- 
taining that they were not literal, but that they meant 
epochs. This shows that the Church does not hold 
literal inspiration of the Bible. It also shows that 
the Bible does not explain itself. They whose rule of 
faith is: ‘The Bible, the whole Bible and nothing 
but the Bible” find themselves in a tangle of funda- 
mentally contradictory creeds. ) 


Non-Catuortic TErstrmony 


“Dr. Edgar still repeats the oft-exploded notion 
that the Catholic Church had ‘a widespread horror 
of Scripture translations, whether accompanied with 
notes or not, and however faultlessly executed.’ He 
does not seem to know that long before the Reforma- 
tion every Catholic nation all over Europe had ver- 
sions of the Bible in the vernacular of the country. 
Between 1477, when the first edition of the French 
New Testament was published at Lyons, and 1535, 
when the first French Protestant Bible was pub- 
lished, upwards of twenty editions of the Bible in 
the French vernacular issued from the Catholic press. 
In Germany prior to the publication of the first edi- 
tion of Luther’s Bible in 1534, no fewer than thirty 


THE BIBLE 221 


‘Catholic editions of the entire Scriptures, and parts 
of the Bible, appeared in the German vernacular. In 
Italy, the very seat of the Papacy, two editions of an- 
Italian translation of the whole Bible appeared in 
1471, and several other editions appeared prior to the 
Reformation. These facts any student can verify by 
a visit to the British Museum, where most of the 
Bibles are to be seen.” 


“The Atheneum,’ Aug. 24, 1889, p. 246. 


“The Catholic Church has quite enough to answer 
for, . . . but in the fifteenth century it certainly did 
not hold back the Bible from the folk, and it gave 
them in the vernacular a long series of devotional 
works which for language and religious sentiment has 
never been surpassed; indeed, we are inclined to 
think it made a mistake in allowing the masses such 
ready access to the Bible. It ought to have recog- 
nized the Bible once for all as a work absolutely un- 
intelligible without a long course of historical study; 
and so far as it was supposed to be inspired, very 
dangerous in the hands of the ignorant.” 


“The Academy,” August, 1886. 


“How insecure the Bible is as a foundation for a 
system of religion may be learned from the fact that 
all the advocates of the Bible have formed their 
peculiar and contradictory creeds from the same vol- 


222 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


ume, anathematized and persecuted each other on 
the same plea.” 


JENAER, Literature No. 48. 


“Tf the world endureth much longer we shall be 
forced, by reason oz the contrary interpretations of 
the Bible which now prevail, to adopt again and take 
refuge in the decrees of the Councils, if we have a 
mind to maintain unity of faith.” 


Zuinexius, Vol. IL of Luther, p. 281. 


XXIV 
INDULGENCES 


OD’S mercy is over all His works. Our 
chastisement is for our sins. Our pardon 
is through His mercy. 

God is the Good Shepherd seeking the sheep that 
strayed, the Good Samaritan caring for the wounded 
waytfarer, the Father welcoming home the prodigal. 

Christ was indulgent. To Mary Magdalen He 
granted indulgence, forgiving her many sins because 
she loved much. To the thief on the cross He granted 
what might be termed a plenary indulgence: .. . 
“this day thou shalt be with me in paradise’ (Luke 
xxlil, 43). He gave to His Church this same power 
of granting indulgence to repentant sinners. 

An indulgence is a remission in full or in part of 
the chastisement due to sin after the guilt of sin 
has been remitted. An indulgence can never be 
granted to one who is not repentant. Usually an 
indulgence takes the form of some work of piety or 
charity instead of the chastisement meted out to sin 
by way of canonical penance. 

A judge grants indulgence in our courts of law 
when he puts a criminal on parole instead of sending 

223 


224 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


him to prison. God sees the heart, and when it is 
right, His mercy goes out to it. Indeed, when the 
heart is right, Our Mother the Church rejoices to 
bestow God’s mercy. That is an indulgence. 

In order to get a clear idea of indulgences it may 
be well to state what was their origin. 

In the early Church penances were very severe. 
This was necessary on account of conditions then 
prevailing. The penances were not only severe, but 
long and often public. Sometimes they were for 
seven, forty, ninety days or for several years and 
sometimes even for life. Those were days when 
martyrs abounded. Persecution drove many to the 
stake, to the beasts or to the executioner’s sword. 
Often these martyrs were left supposedly dead, but 
in reality not so. They were nursed back to life, 
and frequently they could be seen at the Christian 
meetings in their mutilated condition. 

At their request the Church, in order to honor 
them, granted indulgence to repentant sinners, the 
guilt of whose sins had already been remitted in the 
Sacrament of Penance. By applying the merits of 
Christ and the Saints to them, she substituted works 
of mercy or piety for the severer chastisements due 
as temporal punishment for their transgressions. | 

In granting these indulgences, she retained the 
terms and language of the earlier canonical penances. 
This accounts for an indulgence of 7 days, or 40 
days, or 7 years, or a plenary indulgence which means 


INDULGENCES 225 


a complete remission of the temporal chastisement 
due to sin. An indulgence of 7 years, therefore, 
means the remission of that chastisement for sin 
which in the early days was represented by a penance 
of seven years. 

An indulgence is not an incentive to sin, but an 
appeal to gratitude and love. The Church as an in- 
dulgent Mother strives to lead her children to God 
by love rather than by fear or severity. Hence she 
is called Our Holy Mother, the Church. 


Non-Catuoric TEstimony 


“A letter of indulgence was a written document 
granted by someone in authority in the Church, by 
which, in view of some pious act, the temporal penal- 
ties of sin were said to be remitted or changed in 
character in favor of the holder. The letter itself, 
which was written in Latin as an official document 
of the Church, stated that the remission was of no 
avail without due repentance and forsaking of sin.” 


Prorressor Apams (of Yale), Medieval and 
Modern History, p. 203. 


“With regard to the vendible absolutions and in- 
dulgences, with her traffic in which the Romish 
Church has been so long reproached, we do verily 
believe that there are not ten individuals who can 
read, that really conceive that anything so utterly 


226 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


absurd or abominable either is, or ever was, carried 
on with the sanction of the Catholic authorities. 
Dispensations from canonical impediments to mar 
riage, which are not very different from our special 
licenses, and absolution from canonical censures, are 
issued, no doubt, from the chancery of Rome; but 
indulgence to sin, or absolution from sin, neither 
are, nor ever were, granted by this court, or by any 
acknowledged authority. A fee, too, is no doubt paid 
to the officer who issues these writs; but this is no 
more the price of the absolution or dispensation than 
the fee paid to the clerk of a magistrate who ad- 
ministers an oath in this country, is the price of the 


oath.” 
“Edinburgh Review,” November, 1810, p. 19. 


XXV 
CONDUCT 


A O Church nor creed will necessarily make 
a man good. The best parents can only 
influence their children, they cannot make 

them good. Man is free. He likes to be a law to 

himself. Good parents help children to be good.. 
Religion points out the path to goodness and gives 
the best help in the way, yet man may choose his own 
path and go his own way. Christ foretold that many 
would choose the broad road which leads to destruc- 
tion. The Catholic Church points out the right road 
to eternal life and gives the best aid to reach it. 
The purpose of all her ministrations and devotions 
is to help man to attain his last end by keeping the 

Commandments. For this purpose she raises him 

up if he has fallen, and by the Sacrament of Penance, 

starts him anew on the way to eternal life. Many 
persons, if they once fall, lose heart and continue on 
the downward path. A Catholic need never lose 
heart, for by confession and the resolve to do better, 
he can be certain of God’s pardon, and go forward 
with peaceful heart. 

Holy Communion is another wonderful help to 


leading a virtuous life. Preparation for it and its 
227 


228 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


reception elicit the most salutary acts which religion 
inspires. Confession and Communion rightly em- 
ployed are the most powerful aids on earth for living 
uprightly. No one can be faithful to these two 
Sacraments without saving his soul, and being a good 
example and help to others. 

By the Sacraments the Church does more than 
preach or direct, she takes her children by the hand 
and leads them to the very portals of eternal life. 

But as Christ did not compel Judas to be honest, 
so His Church cannot compel all who belong to it 
to be good. However, during all the ages of Chris- 
tianity, the great body of Catholics have led upright 
lives. The evil actions of a few law breakers in our 
Country do not prevent the great body of citizens 
from being a law-abiding people. 

A Catholic who does not practice his religion is 
apt to fall very low because the best influences have 
been exerted on him in vain. God came on earth 
to lead men, not to drive them, and only to those who 
receive Him does He give the power to become the 
sons of God. 


Non-Catnortic TEsTIMoNny 


“The Catholic Church was the very heart of Chris- 
tendom, and the spirit that radiated from her pene- 
trated into all the relations of life.” 

Lecxy, History of the Rise and Influence of the 
Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, Chap. II, p. 37. 


CONDUCT 229 


“T am not a member of the Roman Catholic 
Church. I have never been asked to defend it. I 
have the utmost respect for it as a magnificent or- 
ganization which is successfully working for the up- 
lift of mankind, whose good influence is felt through- 
out this broad land and over the world. Many of 
its members are my personal friends and I have found 
the measure of their patriotism, their loyalty and 
their integrity to be in exact proportion to their de- 
votion to their church and their obedience to its 
teachings.” 


Editorial, “Victor Herald,” Oct. 9, 1914. 


“The doctrines and morals of Protestantism have 
been placed in the balance these three hundred years, 
and have been found wanting.” 


Dr. Percival, in the ‘Nineteenth Contury,” 
XLVI, p. 515. 


“Their (Protestant) universities teach young men 
and women, plainly, that an immoral act is merely 
one contrary to the prevailing conceptions of society ; 
and that the daring who defy the code do not offend 
any Deity, but simply arouse the venom of the ma- 
jority,—the majority that has not yet grasped the 
new idea. Out of Harvard comes the teaching that 
‘there are no absolute evils,’ and that the ‘highest 
ethical life consists at all times in the breaking of 


230 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


rules which have grown too narrow for the actual 
case.’ 99 
Harold Bolce, in “Cosmopolitan,” May, 1909, 
p. 666. 


XXVI 
THE PRACTICAL CATHOLIC 


\HEY who live up to Catholic teaching will 
be ideal men and women. The Saints are 
proof. 

In proportion as one is a practical Catholic one 
will be a good father or mother, a devoted son or 
daughter, an upright and loyal citizen. A practical 
Catholic is one who prays to God morning and night, 
attends Mass on Sundays and Holydays of obligation, 
and receives Holy Communion regularly. One who 
does these things worthily must necessarily be just, 
pure and charitable. 

Human nature is frail; a man with the best in- 
tentions may falter and slip. But if he is a practical 
Catholic, he will not stay down, but will rise, and 
be a better man. The Catholic Religion does not 
make one immune to sin but gives every aid to keep 
from sinning. 

The institution of the Sacrament of Penance by 
Christ is evidence that His Church was to include 
not only saints but sinners also. Catholic ideals are 


so lofty that the greatest saint must ever strive for 
231 


232 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


their attainment; at the same time, her charity and 
zeal are so Christ-like that she reaches down to the 
lowest. depths to help the fallen to rise. 

A Catholic conscientiously practising his Faith 
cannot become a bad man. A merely nominal Cath- 
olic is the worst enemy of the Church,—and of him- 
self. 


Non-catuotic TEstTimMony 


“The service for newspaper men at half past two 
in the morning, which the Roman Catholic Rector 
of St. Andrew’s Church, Duane Street, New York, 
began last week, as we announced some time ago, 
justifies the innovation amply. Seven hundred men 
were present, not only newspaper workers, but tele- 
graph operators and post office employees,—the city 
never goes to sleep. It is gratifying to find so im- 
mediate and hearty a response to this generous desire 
on the part of our Roman Catholic brothers to allow 
no spiritual need that is within their power to meet 
to go unsatisfied.” 


“The Churchman,” May 18, 1908. 


“Students of religious movements. in the United 
States have discovered that the Catholics have no 
difficulty in filling their churches three or four times 
on Sunday, while the Protestant communions are con- 


THE PRACTICAL CATHOLIC 233: 


tinually asking how to get people to go to church. 
The Catholics seem to have solved the problem.” 


“Philadelphia Ledger,’ Nov. 17, 1915.. 


“This is not only a sign of an infidel society; it 
is also an upgrowth from the principles which form 
the evil side of Protestantism. There can be no doubt 
as to the genesis of this abomination. I quote the 
language of the Bishop (Protestant) Maine: ‘Laxity 
of opinion and teaching on the sacredness of the 
marriage bond, and on the question of divorce, origi- 
nated among the Protestants of Continental Europe 
in the sixteenth century. It soon began to appear 
in the legislation of Protestant states on that conti- 
nent, and nearly at the same time to affect the laws 
of New England. And from that time to the present, 
it has proceeded from one degree to another in 
America, until the Christian conception of the nature 
and obligations of the marriage bond finds scarcely 
any recognition in legislation, or, as must be inferred, 
in the prevailing sentiments of the community.’ 

“This is a heresy born and bred of free thought 
as applied to religion; it is the outcome of the habit 
of interpreting the Bible according to man’s private 
judgment, rejecting ecclesiastical authority and 
Catholic tradition, and asserting our freedom to 
believe whatever we choose, and to select what re 
ligion pleases us best.” 

Dr. Morgan Dix, Lectures on the Calling of a. 
Christan Woman, p. 123. 


XXVIT 
THE END OF MAN 


T makes a great difference to man whether he 
is made for time or eternity. If this life ends 
all, man is right in living for this life only; 

he will satisfy every inclination of nature, having 
regard only to human consequences. 

The great attraction of having no set religion is 
that it lets man go hisown way. But if man is made 
for eternity he must go the way which leads to a 
happy eternity. Religion points out that way. Ex- 
perience teaches that this life is not the end of man. 
Experience confirms the voice of God who de 
clares: .. . “man shall go into the house of his 
eternity... .” (Ecclesiastes xii, 5). “Labour not 
for the meat which perisheth, but for that which 
endureth unto life everlasting, which the Son of man 
will give you” (John vi, 27). “Who hath been 
tried thereby, and made perfect, he shall have glory 
everlasting. He that could have transgressed, and 
hath not trangressed: could do evil things, and hath 
not done them:” (Kcclesiasticus xxxi, 10). “To 
him that shall overcome, I will give to sit with me 
in my throne: .. .” (Apoce. ili, 21). “But they 

234 


THE END OF MAN 235 


that shall be accounted worthy of the world,... 
Neither can they die any more: for they are equal 
to the Angels, and are the children of God, . . .” 
(Luke xx, 35-6). 

The end of man is to become a child of God. 
Now we know why Christ said:, “For what doth it 
profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer 
the loss of his own soul” (Matt. xvi, 26). 

The end of man is sadly perverted by the material- 
ism ot the present day. The modern world has its 
heart set on money, pleasure and comfort, forgetting 
that life is a pilgrimage, that we have not here a 
lasting city, but seek one which is to come. Christ 
has told us that this world is not the goal but the 
starting point of man. By example and precept He 
taught us to make eternal life our main purpose in 
this life, although the world says to make the pass- 
ing hour and its enjoyment our main object. If 
Christ is right, the world is wrong; if Christ is 
wrong, the best men and women of all the ages have 
been dupes and He is the greatest imposter of all 
time, the arch-deceiver of mankind. 

Unless we are prepared to brand Him who has 
done most to ennoble mankind an imposter or fool, 
we must acknowledge Him to be God. It is either 
Christ the imposter or Christ the Son of God. Know- 
ing Him to be the most perfect being among mankind, 
He must be what He says He was, God, and there- 
fore our destiny is what He declared it to be. 


236 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


He tells us that this life is only the way to ever- 
lasting life and that the best way to reach eternal 
life is to fulfill properly the duties of this life. He 
declares that true peace is not that which the world 
gives, but what comes by living for Him, and realiz- 
ing that we are on our way to Him, our Happiness, 
our God, our Father. We are on our way home, our 
true home. 

Through Christ we have been made members of 
the heavenly family,—a thought when fully realized 
that will give us peace which the world can neither 
give nor take away. It is a peace based on the cer- 
tainty of God’s promise that if we do His will in 
this life, we shall share His glory forever in the life 
beyond. The hope of one day being members of the 
heavenly family will inspire us, as it has those of all 
the centuries, to do our part manfully in this world, 
looking forward to our eternal inheritance. In this 
way we shall live orderly lives, ruled and directed 
by God’s holy will,—disciplined lives which will con- 
duct us to participation in the life divine. 


THE END OF MAN 237 


Non-Caruouic Trstrmony 


“The crowd of unknown saints whose names 
fill the calendars, and live some of them only in 
the titles of our churches, mainly represent the age 
of heroic spiritual ventures, of which we see glimpses 
of St. Boniface, the Apostle of Germany; of St. 
Columban and St. Gall wandering from Ireland 
to reclaim the barbarians of the Burgundian deserts 
and of the shores of the Swiss lakes. It was among 
men like these,—men who were termed emphati- 
cally ‘men of religion,’—that the new races first 
saw the example of life ruled by a great and 
Serious purpose, which yet was not one of ambition, 
or the excitement of war; a life of deliberate and 
steady industry, of hard and uncomplaining labor, a 
life as full of activity in peace, of stout and brave 
work as a warrior’s was wont to be in the camp, on 
the march, in battle. It was in these men and in the 
Christianity which they taught, and which inspired 
and governed them, that the fathers of our modern 
nations first saw exemplified the sense of human re- 
sponsibility; first learned the nobleness of a ruled 
and disciplined life; first enlarged their thoughts of 
the uses of existence; first were taught the dignity 
and sacredness of honest toil.” 


Dean Church, Influences of Christianity upon 
National Character, p. 125, 





PART IIT 


STATEMENTS 
OF NON-CATHOLICS 
WHO HAVE BECOME CATHOLICS 





JOHN L. STODDARD 


John L Stoddard was born in 1850. He studied 
theology in the Yale Divinity School. For 25 years 
he was the foremost lecturer in the English speaking 
world. He became a Catholic in 1920. 


“When I am asked what I have found within the 
Catholic Church superior to all that Protestantism 
gave me, I find that language is inadequate to ex- 
press it. One thinks of the familiar metaphor of a 
stained-glass window in a vast cathedral. Seen from 
without by day, this seems to be an unintelligible 
mass of dusky glass. Viewed from within, however, 
it reveals a beautiful design, where sacred story 
glows resplendently in form and color. So it is with 
the Church of Rome. One must enter it to under- 
stand its sanctity and charm. 

“When I reflect upon that Church’s long, unbroken 
continuity extending back to the very days of the 
Apostles; when I recall her grand, inspiring tradi- 
tions, her blessed Sacraments, her immemorial lan- 
guage, her changeless creed, her noble ritual, 
her stately ceremonies, her priceless works of art, her 
wondrous unity of doctrine, her ancient prayers, 
her matchless organization, her Apostolic authority, 


her splendid roll of Saints and Martyrs reaching up 
241 


242 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


like Jacob’s ladder, and uniting earth and heaven; 
when I reflect upon the intercession for us of those 
Saints and Martyrs, enhanced by the petitions of the 
Blessed Mother of our Lord ; and, last not least, when 
I consider the abiding presence of the Saviour on her 
altars ;—I feel that this One, Holy, Apostolic Church 
has given me certainty for doubt, order for confusion, 
sunlight for darkness, and substance for shadow. It 
is the Bread of Life, and the Wine of the Soul, in- 
stead of the unsatisfying husks; the father’s welcome, 
with the ring and the robe, instead of the weary exile 
in the wilderness of doubt. It is true the prodigal 
must retrace the homeward road, and even enter the 
doorway of the mansion on his knees; but, within 
what a recompense! 

“Favored are those who from their childhood up 
are nurtured in the Catholic Church, and to whom 
all her comforts, aids, and Sacraments come no less 
freely than the air and sunshine. 

“Yet I have sometimes wondered whether such 
favored Catholics ever know the rapture of the home 
less waif, to whom the splendours of his Father’s 
house are suddenly revealed; the consolation of the 
mariner whose storm-tossed vessel finally attains the 
sheltered port; the gratitude of the lonely wanderer, 
long lost in cold and darkness, who shares at last, 
however undeservedly, the warmth and light of 
God’s great spiritual Home!” 


Rebuilding a Lost Fatth, p. 221. 


STATEMENTS OF NON-CATHOLICS 2438 
ALBERT VON RUVILLE 


Albert Von Ruville was born in 1855. He is Pro- 
fessor of History at the University of Halle-Witten- 
berg, and the author of The Life of William Pitt, 
Earl of Chatham, in three volumes. He became a — 
Catholic in 1909. 


“When a man has taken an important step in a 
new direction, which affects the future course of his 
life, he will ask himself, perhaps repeatedly, whether 
what he has done was right or wrong. It has not 
been so with me. After I had once accepted the 
Catholic Faith such thoughts never entered my mind. 
Now at last I comprehended the power of the Catho- 
lic Church over men of every class, every profession, 
every degree of education. She has a gift to bestow 
which nothing on earth can equal, a gift which can 
benefit every believer, sanctifying the body by filling 
the soul with heavenly light. 

“Looking back I should like to call attention to 
one point. JI have been practically free from the 
inner conflicts which are supposed to be inseparable 
from such changes. My aim was the Truth, and 
after I had found this in Jesus Christ, my aim was 
Jesus Christ. To come as close to Him as possible 
was my longing, even unto the full union in the Holy 
Sacrament of the Altar. 


244 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


“A Church has only a right to exist insofar ag it 
is a means to bring men nearer to Christ. I was 
compelled to become a Catholic; there was no choice. 
And had the Catholic doctrine been explained to me 
thirty years ago, I believe I should then have become 
a Catholic. 

“As far as I am concerned I can joyfully acknowl- 
edge that since the time of my conversion no evil 
has come to my notice in the Catholie Church, noth- 
ing but purity and sanctity. In the Protestant 
Church I found much that was beautiful and good, 
but yet many weighty and grave defects, and there 
were no visible remedies at all for their removal ex- 
cept the one which is expressed in the call back to 
Holy Church.” 

Back to Holy Church, p. 33. 


THOMAS DWIGHT 


Thomas Dwight, M.D., LL.D., Professor of Anat- 
omy at Harvard, became a convert to the Catholic 
Faith after years of study and religious inquiry. 
His statement follows: 


“It has often been said by those outside of the 
Church that they cannot see how a Catholic can be 


STATEMENTS OF NON-CATHOLICS 245 


a man of science, nor how a man of science can be 
a Catholic. It may be that it is my duty, on account 
of the position I have the honor to hold, to give to 
both of these classes such poor help as I can. 

“The Catholic rejoices by his faith not only in a 
grander view of creation, but in one far more in ac © 
cord with true science than the atheistic or pantheis- 
tic one offered us by the so-called science of the day. 
I may say with Brunetiére that ‘Faith is not opposed 
to reason in any way.’ It simply introduces us into 
a new world to which reason by itself has no access. 

“Faith enlightens us on matters above the reach 
of reason. It aids reason, ennobles reason, com- 
pletes reason, and if I may say it, crowns reason.” 


Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist—Preface. 


HENRY LIVINGSTON RICHARDS 


Henry Livingston Richards was born in the year 
1814 and ordained a minister of the Episcopal 
Church in 1839. Eight years afterwards he became 
a convert to the Catholic Faith. He writes thus of 
a Catholic service at which a former Protestant min- 
ister was the officiating priest: 


“It seemed like a foretaste of the worship of 
heaven. Father Forbes gave us one of the most 
powerful, impressive and eloquent sermons I ever 


246 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


listened to on the love and condescension of Almighty 
God in visiting this world to redeem and saveus. I 
am not ashamed to say that I wept like a child. I 
noticed two Protestants present. How I did pray 
that they be converted to the Truth and led into the 
beautiful pastures of Christ’s Holy Church. 1 was 
struck with the contrast between the Catholic Church 
and the Episcopal. 

“Oh, great and holy and beautiful is Holy Mother 
Church and I felt to-day lke exclaiming with St. 
Augustine: “Too late have I know thee, O Ancient 
and Eternal Truth! Too late have I known thee, too 


late have I loved thee!’ ” 
A Loyal Life, p. 257. 


CHARLES WARREN STODDARD 


Charles Warren Stoddard, distinguished writer, 
was born in 1845 and became a Catholie in 1869. 
Describing his First Communion he wrote: 


“The love which casteth out all fear filled me to 
overflowing with unspeakable peace. Alone in my 
chamber at home, all that day I wondered if I could 
ever again stain my lips with even a careless word ; 
wondered how this mighty privilege can be neglected 
or abused by those whose birthright it is; wondered 
what there could be to long for, or to live for, or to 


STATEMENTS OF NON-CATHOLICS 247 


hope for, beyond the pale of the one true Church, 
into whose majestical bosom I had been received.” 


A Troubled Heart and How It Was Comforted 
at Last. 


JAMES FIELD SPALDING 


James Field Spalding was born in 1839. For 
twenty-two years he was a Protestant Episcopal 
clergyman. He entered the Catholic Church in 
1892. 


“Tt was the genuine authority which the Catholic 
Church proves herself to possess, set forth by thinkers 
like Saint Augustine among the ancients and Cardi- 
nal Newman among moderns, which makes such a 
strong appeal to me, when brought to consider my 
obligation to truth. Although after my submission 
to the Church there followed a period of storm and 
stress, the end reached, by God’s mercy, was the peace 
which can be found only in the certainty and reality 
of the Catholic faith. 

“In now adding my atom of testimony to truth, I 
may possibly aid some who are weighing the matter, 
perhaps long tossed upon the waters of unrest, still 
striving and struggling. However, many complica- 
tions may arise in the minds of thinking people as 
they face the great question, ‘What and where is the 


248 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


genuine religion of Jesus Christ ?—-and there were 
never so many complications as to-day—more and 
more will it be found that but one organization in 
the world can satisfy, for but one conserves the essen- 
tial idea of the Church, the Divine Institution, God’s 
revelation speaking with His authority to men. 

“Tt is little for one or many to meet trial, dis- 
couragement, opposition, persecution. It is a joy to 
suffer and endure for the truth of God.” 


The World’s Unrest and Remedy. 


KEGAN PAUL 


Kegan Paul was born in 1828, and educated at 
Eton and Exeter College, Oxford. For twenty-three 
years he was in the ministry of the Church of Eng- 
land. In 1890 he entered the Catholic Church. 


“The blessings of the true Church are greater than 
we had hoped. I may say for myself that the happy 
tears shed at the tribunal of Penance, the fervour of 
my first Communion, were as nothing to what I feel 
now. Day by day the mystery of the altar seems 
greater, the unseen world nearer, God more a Father, 
Our Lady more tender, the great company of saints 
more friendly—if I dare use the word—my guardian 
angel closer to my side. All human relationships be- 


STATEMENTS OF NON-CATHOLICS 249 


come holier, all friends dearer because they are ex- 
plained and sanctified by the relationships and the 
friendships of another life. Sorrows have come to 
me in abundance since God gave me grace to enter 
His Church, but I can bear them better than of old, 
and the blessing He has given me outweighs them 
all. May He forgive me that I so long resisted Him 
and lead those I love unto the fair land wherein He 
has brought me to dwell.” 

Principal Motwes, ete. 


JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 


John Henry Newman was born in 1801. He is the 
most distinguished graduate of Oxford. For twenty- 
four years he was a clergyman of the Church of Eng- 
land. In 1845 he became a Catholic. 


“From the time that I became a Catholic, of course 
I have no further history of my religious opinions to 
narrate. In saying this, I do not mean to say that 
my mind has been idle, or that I have given up think- — 
ing on theological subjects; but that I have had no 
changes to record, and have had no anxiety of heart 
whatever. I have been in perfect peace and content- 
ment. I never have had one doubt. 

“From the day I became a Catholic to this day, 
now close upon thirty years, I have never had a mo- 


250 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


ment’s misgiving that the communion of Rome is 
that Church which the Apostles set up at Pentecost, 
which alone has the adoption of the sons, and the 
glory, and the covenants, and the revealed law, and 
the service of God, and the Promises, and in which 
the Anglican communion, whatever its merits and 
demerits, whatever the great excellence of individuals 
in it, has, as such, no part. Never have I for a mo- 
ment hesitated in my conviction, since 1845, that it 
was my clear duty to join the Catholic Church, as I 
did then join it, which in my own conscience I felt 
to be divine. Persons and places, incidents and 
circumstances of life, which belong to my first forty- 
four years, are deeply lodged in my memory and my 
affections; moreover, I have had more to try and 
afflict me in various ways as a Catholic than as an 
Anglican; but never for a moment have I wished 
myself back ; never have I ceased to thank my Maker 
for His mercy in enabling me to make the great 
change and never has He let me feel forsaken by 
Him or in distress, or any kind of religious trouble. 

“TI have not had one moment’s wavering of trust 
in the Catholic Church ever since I was received into 
her fold. I hold, and ever have held, that her Sov- 
ereign Pontiff is the center of unity and the Vicar 
of Christ; and I ever have had, and have still, an un- 
clouded faith in her creed and in all its articles; a 
supreme satisfaction in her worship, discipline, and 
teaching; and an eager longing, and a hope against 


STATEMENTS OF NON-CATHOLICS 251 


hope, that the many dear friends whom I have left in 
Protestantism may be partakers of my happiness. 
. . . Return to the Church of England! No! the 
net is broken and we are delivered. I should be a 
consummate fool (to use a mild term) if in my old 
age, I left the land flowing with milk and honey, for — 
the: city of confusion and the house of bondage.” 


RONALD A. KNOX 


Ronald Knox is a son of the Anglican Bishop of 
Manchester, England. He was born in 1888; was 
educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford; be- 
came a clergyman of the Church of England, and 
was elected a fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, in 
1910; he entered the Catholic Church in 1916. 


“T suppose it is inevitable that after the question, 
‘Why did you become a Roman Catholic? Anglicans 
and others should proceed to the question, ‘What does 
it feel like? 

“In answer to this, I can register one impression 
at; once, curiously inconsistent with my preconceived 
notions. on the subject. I had been encouraged to 
suppose, and fully prepared to find, that the imme- 
diate result of submission to Rome would be the sense 
of having one’s liberty cramped and restricted in a 


252 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


number of ways, necessary no doubt to the welfare 
of the Church at large, but galling to the individual. 
I have been overwhelmed with the feeling of liberty, 
the glorious liberty of the sons of God. It was not 
till I became a Catholic that I became conscious of 
my former homelessness, my exile from the place that | 
was my own. I now found ease and naturalness, and © 
stretched myself like a man who has been sitting in 
a cramped position. I found harbourage, the resting 
place which God has allowed to His people on 
earth.” 

A Spiritual Zineid. Prologue. 


THOMAS W. ALLIES 


Thomas W. Allies, born in 1813, educated at Eton 
and Oxford, spent fourteen years in the Anglican 
ministry. Then in 1850 he entered the Catholic 
Church. 


“Whither, then, shall I turn but to thee, O glorious 
Roman Church, to whom God has given, in its full- 
ness, the double gift of ruling and of teaching? .. . 
Too late have I found thee, who shouldst have fos- 
tered my childhood, and set thy gentle and awful seal 
on my youth; who shouldst have brought me up in 
the serene regions of truth, apart from doubt and 
the long agony of uncertain years, ... too long 


STATEMENTS OF NON-CATHOLICS 253 


sought, and too late found; yet be it given me to pass 
under thy protection the short remains of this 
troubled life, to wander no more from the fold, but 
to find the chair of the Chief Shepherd to be indeed 
the shadow of a Great Rock in a weary land!” 


The See of St. Peter. Preface. 


“In becoming a Catholic there was the sense that 
I was entering the place of truth and goodness. Both 
on the moral and intellectual side, Protestantism 
had been to me desolate and desolating. From that 
hour to this I have never ceased to admire the solid, 
cohesive structure of Catholic truth, the world-con- 
quering force of Catholic charity. So, I doubt not, 
it will be to the latest hour of my being; and com- 
bined with the sense of security and of love, which 
has a worthy object in the harbour where I now am, 
will be the feeling of the wretchedness one has un- 
dergone in the desolate tracts swept over by the cur- 
rents of human opinion, and marked in so many 
different paths by the traces of human ambition and 
natural desire. O Church of the living God, Pillar 
and Ground of Truth, fair as the moon, bright as the 
gun, terrible as an army in battle array, O Mother 
of Saints and Doctors, Martyrs and Virgins, clothe 
thyself in the robe and aspect, as thou hast the 
strength of Him whose Body thou art, the Love for 
our sake Incarnate. Shine forth upon thy lost chil- 


254 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


dren, and draw them to the double fountain of thy 
bosom, the well-spring of Truth and Grace.” 
A Infe’s Decisvon—final chapter. 


ELIZABETH BAYLEY SETON 


Elizabeth Bayley Seton was the Foundress of the 
Sisters of Charity. She was born in 1774 and be 
came a Catholic in 1805. 


“On the 14th of March, 1805, I was admitted to 
the true Church of Jesus Christ, with a mind grati- 
fied and satisfied, as that of a poor ship-wrecked 
mariner on being restored to his home. 

“T seemed then to be admitted to a new life and 
to the peace which passeth all understanding; and 
with David I now say, “Thou hast saved my soul from 
death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from fall- 
ing’; and certainly I most earnestly desire to walk 
before Him in the land of the hving, esteeming my 
privilege so great, and what He has done for me 
so far beyond my most lively hopes, that 1 can scarce 
realize my own happiness.” 


ROBERT HUGH BENSON 


Robert Hugh Benson was a son of Archbishop Ben- 
son of Canterbury, the ecclesiastical head of the 
Church of England. He was born in 1871, and edu- 


STATEMENTS OF NON-CATHOLICS 258 


cated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. He 
served in the Anglican Ministry for nine years, and 
entered the Catholic Church in 1903. 


“Oardinal Newman compares, somewhere, the sen- - 
sations of a convert from Anglicanism to those of a 
man in a fairy story, who, after wandering all night 
in a city of enchantment, turns after sunrise to look 
back upon it, and finds to his astonishment that the 
buildings are no longer there; they have gone up like 
wraiths and mists under the light of the risen day. 
So the present writer has found. He no longer, as 
in the first months of his conversion, is capable of 
comparing the two systems of belief together, since 
that which he has left appears to him no longer a 
coherent system at all. There are, of course, asso- 
ciations, memories, and emotions still left in his mind 
—some of them very sacred and dear to his heart; he 
still is happy in numbering among his friends many 
persons who still find amongst those associations and 
- memories a system which they believe to be the reli- 
gion instituted by Jesus Christ; yet he himself can 
no longer see in them anything more than hints and 
fragments and aspirations detached from their center 
and reconstructed into a purely human edifice with- 
out foundation or solidity. Yet he is conscious of no 
bitterness at all—at the worst he experiences some- 
times a touch of impatience merely at the thought of 
having been delayed so long by shadows from the 


256 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


possession of divine substance. He cannot, however, 
with justice, compare a dream with a reality. He 
has abandoned, therefore, the attempt—which lack 
of leisure in any case would make practically useless 
—to place side by side with his drowsy memories of 
Anglicanism the story of his vivid adventures under 
the sunlight of Eternal Truth.” 


Confessions of a Convert.—Preface. 


ORESTES A. BROWNSON 


Orestes A. Brownson was one of the keenest in- 
tellects that America has known. Before his con- 
version, which occurred in 1844, he wrote: 


“We had wandered in darkness, stumbling from 
error to error, with downcast look and saddened 
heart, craving for freedom and finding only bondage.” 

After his conversion he says: 

“It is not easy to conceive the sense of freedom 
and relief one experiences in passing from Rational- 
ism or any other form of Protestantism to Catholicity. 
The convert to the Church is the prisoner liberated 
from the Bastile; a weight is thrown from his shoul- 
ders, the manacles fall from his hands and the fetters 
from his feet; he feels as light and as free as the air, 
and he would chirp and sing as the bird. This world 


STATEMENTS OF NON-CATHOLICS 257 


changes its hue in his eyes; and he runs and leaps 
under the blue sky of a boundless universe. His 
thought, his mind, his very soul, is lighted up, and 
revels in the freedom of universal truth. He feels 
that he has something whereon he can stand, that 
he has no longer to bear up the Church, but the 
Church can bear him up. He is conscious of an un- 
failing support, and no longer fears that he is in 
danger every step he takes of having his footing give 
way and of falling through. His heart bounds with 
a sense of unlimited freedom, and with a joy un- 
speakable.” 


SIR FRANCIS BURNAND 


Sir Francis Burnand was born in 1836, and was 
educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. 
For twenty-six years, from 1880 to 1906 he was 
editor of “Punch,” England’s famous comic weekly. 
Sir Francis had become a Catholic at the age of 21. 
Forty-six years after his conversion he wrote: 


“Never for one single second at any period of my 
life have I repented of or regretted the step I then 


took.’’ 
Recollections and Remamuscences. 


258 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


ISAAC THOMAS HECKER 


Isaac Thomas Hecker was born in 1819. After 
years of inquiry lie finally became a Catholic in 1845. 
He was the founder of the “Catholic World.” 


“Tf feel very cheerful and at ease since I have con- 
sented to join the Catholic Church. Never have I 
felt the quietness, the immovableness, and the perma- 
nent rest. that Ido now. It is inexpressible.” 


“Catholic World,” Dec., 1890. 


JOYCE KILMER 


Joyce Kilmer was born in 1886. He became a 
Catholic in 1913. He was killed in action on July 
30, 1918. Shortly before his death he wrote: 


“Pray that I may love God more. . .». Except 
while we are in the trenches I receive Holy Com- 
munion every morning, so it ought to be all the easier 
for me to attain the object of my prayers. I got 
Faith, you know, by praying for it. I hope to get 
Love the same way.” 


STATEMENTS OF NON-CATHOLICS 259 
FREDERICK LUCAS, M. P. 


Frederick Lucas was born in 1812 and entered 
the Catholic Church in 1839. He founded the 
London ‘Tablet.’ 


“As a child who has lost himself, he knows not © 
where, far from home, returns weeping and weary to 
his mother’s breast, so after long wandering in dark- 
ness, seeking for truth, but finding no rest because 
I could find no certainty, I have at length come, tired 
out with profitless labor, to find repose and consola- 
tion within that temple whose eternal gates are ever 
open to invite the weary and erring pilgrim to enter 
seh Ai 
“T have accepted the invitation; I have entered in; 
and within I have found, not the mutilated limbs of 
truth, but the glorious virgin herself, in all her celes- 
tial radiance. 

“It seems to me that a person who separates from 
the religious society in which he has been born and 
educated for the purpose of joining another which is 
little known to those whom he is leaving, and which, 
although little known, is yet much disliked and bit- 
terly condemned, owes it both to them and to himself 
to furnish some explanation of the reasons by which 
he has been guided. . . . Now in casting my eyes 
over the entire history of Christianity, 1 saw one 
striking fact which was too obvious to be misunder- 
stood. Anterior to the schism between the Eastern 


260 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


and Western Churches, the great bulk of Christians 
were united under the supremacy of the Bishops of 
Rome, in a society the organization of which had 
been perpetuated by a regular transmission of 
authority such as I have described, and which con- 
tained within itself unity of faith and practice. I 
found, too, that every collection of individuals who, 
either before or since, had disunited from com- 
munion with Rome had, most of them, lost this 
primitive and perpetual organization; had, all of 
them, cut themselves off at the same time from the 
principle of unity. . . . Look at all and each of 
the Churches which have separated from Rome. 
Every one of them contains within itself the principle 
of discord, of disunion, of diversity of faith. Follow 
the teaching of any one of them, and the doctrine of 
Christ is no longer one, but many, varying with 
colour, climate, longitude, temper, disposition, and 
parentage. Look again at the Churches in com- 
munion with Rome: you behold unity, concord, agree- 
ment. You behold also a principle which, against 
all human probabilities, in spite of all human risks 
and dangers, has maintained unity and agreement of 
faith, and along with that. vital soundness and energy 
for the propagation of the faith. Everywhere else L 
beheld discord: here, and here only, I beheld concord. 
Here, then, I saw abundant reason for a presumption 
in favour of the Catholic Church.” 

My Reasons for Becoming a Catholic. 


STATEMENTS OF NON-CATHOLICS 261 


HENRY EDWARD MANNING 


Henry Edward Manning was born in 1808, and 
was educated at Harrow and Oxford University. He 
was a clergyman in the Church of England, and in 
1851 became a Catholic. He died Cardinal Arch- - 
bishop of Westminster in 1892. 


“From the hour I saw the full light of Catholic 
faith, no shade of doubt has ever passed over my 
reason or my conscience. I could as soon believe 
that a part is equal to the whole, as that Protes- 
tantism, in any shape, from Lutheranism to Angli- 
canism, is the Revelation of the day of Pentecost.” 

Letter to Archbishop Lynch, Toronto. 


BASIL WILLIAM MATURIN 


Basil William Maturin was born in Ireland in 
1847, the son of a Protestant minister. After twenty- 
seven years as a clergyman in the Church of England, 
he became a Catholic in 1897. 


“Tt is only as the years go by that one realizes 
how far one has travelled from one’s former stand- 
point, and how great the change is. 1 do not mean 
so much in the details of faith, as in the whole com- 
prehensive idea of what the Church is, and what it 
is to be in a Church that is always conscious of its 


262 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


own Divine authority and commission, and makes it 
felt from the highest to the lowest. You feel that 
you are in an organization that has endured the test 
of time and the assaults of many antagonists, whose 
foundations are built into the solid Rock against 
which the Gates of Hell cannot prevail, that you 
breathe an atmosphere in which your own weak faith 
is braced and strengthened by the faith of a vast 
multitude, and is supported by an authority upon 
which you can rest. You feel indeed like an exile 
who has returned to his Fatherland. There is a 
strange sense of coming to land, and amongst a peo- 
ple to whom you always belonged, though you did 
not know it. 

“To one who, like myself, came into the Church 
when middle life was well past, there has not been 
much of the sense of exultation which some have 
spoken of, still less has there ever been any feeling of 
bitterness or contempt for what I have left. But 
there has been an ever-deepening sense of certainty 
and security and peace, with moments of intense 
realization of the glory and the strength of the City 
of God whose Walls are salvation and whose Gates 
are peace.” 


The Price of Unity. 


STATEMENTS OF NON-CATHOLICS 263 


JOHN MITCHELL 


John Mitchell was born in 1870, and entered the 
Cathole Church in 1907. Theodore Roosevelt, while 
President of the United States, wrote of Mitchell: 
“The farther I have gone down into him, the better ’ 
he proves to be.” 


“My conversion pleased my wife, as a matter of 
course, but that was not the motive that guided me in 
the matter. I had carefully investigated the subject 
and had long since made up my mind that I wanted 
to die in the Catholic faith. 

“T am going to do my utmost to be a good Catholic 
and not one, of whom there are so many in the world, 
who use the Catholic Church only when they are in 
sore distress. I want to be a consistent Catholic and 
a useful one.” 


RT. REV. DR. W. CROKE ROBINSON, M. A,, 
Fellow of New College, Oxford. 


“T loved the English Church intensely. It was 
associated with everybody and everything dear to 
me, from my first dawn of consciousness. From a 
wordly point of view, to change my faith was to lose 
everything dear to me, and to gain nothing. It 
meant the wreck of one’s life, shattered nerves, and, 


264 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


for all I knew, absolute destitution. Can it be won- 
dered that I felt reluctant to take the step? I have 
always accounted it as nothing short of a signal 
miracle of God’s grace by which a conversion like 
mine was brought about. Forever and forever 
blessed be His holy name and the intercession of His 
Blessed Mother.” 


REV. GEORGE SPENCER 


“It is now time to set down the principal steps by 
which it pleased God gradually to overcome my 
prejudices against the Catholic Church. In my early 
education I heard very little about the Catholic 
Church. I had been taught, in general terms, that it 
was full of errors and superstitions, that at the 
glorious era of the Reformation Luther had begun 
the work of dispelling the darkness with which the 
spiritual power of the Popes had covered the world, 
and that England was one of the favoured nations 
which had shaken off the yoke, and had adopted the 
most admirable system of faith and worship of any 
of the reformed churches. This is the general 
statement of the case, which has been handed down 
from father to son since the days of Queen Elizabeth. 
If it be asked how people can suffer themselves to be 
so imposed upon, I can only answer, that men will 
readily believe what flatters their personal or their 


STATEMENTS OF NON-CATHOLICS 265 


national vanity, and, therefore, the English have re- 
ceived this tale with ready credulity; and hardly one 
in a thousand stops to doubt what comes confirmed 
by such weight of authority and what he naturally 
desires to be true. At one time, perhaps, I should . 
have assented to principles like these, but I did not 
hold them long when I began to think for myself. 
. . . In my present situation, every new inquiry to 
which the course of my studies leads me, and every 
conversation I have with my Protestant brethren 
whom I occasionally meet, assure me more and more 
that if there is a true religion upon earth, it is the 
Catholic Church, and that in joining that Church I 
have done what, if I live according to its holy pre- 
cepts, insures to me in this life the possession of true 
peace of heart, and will lead me to eternal happiness 
in the next.” 

From the account of his conversion from the 

Protestant Episcopal Church of England. 


SIR BERTRAM WINDLE 


Professor of Anthropology at St. Michael’s Col- 
leet and Special Lecturer on Ethnology in the 
University of Toronto. . 


“The book which was largely instrumental in 
making a Catholic of me was Littledale’s Plain 


266 CHRIST OR CHAOS 


Reasons Against Jowng the Church of Rome, which 
some friend sent to me when I was embarked upon 
this course of reading. And certainly, after I had 
finished it, the step which I had previously regarded 
as at least possible seemed now one which could never 
be taken. Whilst in this frame of mind I was walk- 
ing down a street, idly looking into the shop win- 
dows, when in those of a Catholic repository I saw 
a book which purported to deal with that of which I 
was then thinking. I went in at once and bought it 
and I suppose I need hardly say that it was Catholic 
Controversy, by the dear friend of my later days, Dr. 
Ryder. I carefully studied both these books together, 
and, bafiled by their discrepancies, determined to 
select some dozen or so of the most divergent passages 
and consult the original authorities. A few hours 
spent in a good hbrary stocked with the Fathers 
sufficed to enable me to make up my mind. The die 
was cast, and I was received into the Church. And 
now I should like to know which of those two books 
made a Catholic of me? For I should probably 
never have read Catholic Controversy if I had not 
first read Littledale.” 


“Possibility of the reunion of the Anglican Catho- 
lic and Roman Catholic faiths, separated since the 
time of Henry VIII, was voiced last night at the 
convention of Protestant Episcopal priests. The 
meeting closed to-day with a high mass at St. 
Clement’s Church. 

“Rey. Joseph G. H. Barry, D.D., rector of the 
Church of St. Mary the Virgin, New York, advanced 
three bases on which a reunion might be sought, while 
Bishop Irving P. Johnson of Colorado emphasized 
the fact that Anglicans and Romans have the same 
sacraments, creeds, scriptures and ministry. Rev. 
George Craig Stewart, D.D., rector of St. Luke’s 
Church, Evanston, Ill., deplored the divisions in the 
church as ‘a scandal and a sin’ and discussed the 
problem of reunion. 

“Bishop Thomas F. Gailor, president of the 
National Council of the’ Episcopal Church, urged 
loyalty ‘as good Catholics’ to the Episcopal com- 
munion. 

“Dr. Barry’s three points for reunion are: 

1. Concurrence in the belief that Christ con- 
ferred primacy upon St. Peter and the bishops of 
Rome succeeding him. 

2. Agreement that church jurisdiction should 
be allocated to the pope. 

8. Belief in ‘an infallibility which is the mind 
of the church through the pope as its organ of state- 
ment, and which is authenticated by its recognition 
by the whole church.’ ” 


“Boston Transcript,” May, 1924. 


267 


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